Methods and systems for recommending content restrictions

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are described herein for recommending content restrictions to a user based on chatter in a social network of the user. The system analyzes chatter in the social network to identify a correlation between what is posted by users and the content that the users are posting about. The system stores a mapping between chatter and expected attributes of the content referenced by the chatter. The system will determine whether to block the content when an expected attribute is associated with a content restriction.

BACKGROUND

In conventional systems, a user can restrict access to content that maybe inappropriate to a user or a group of users based on content ratingsassociated with media. For example, a parent may restrict access tomedia by a child when a content rating is above a specified threshold.However, oftentimes the content ratings fail to accurately capture thefull scope of content in the media. Therefore, the child may beunintentionally restricted from watching media that is actuallyappropriate for the child (e.g., when a content rating is higher than itshould be for the child) or, conversely, the child may beunintentionally granted access to media that is inappropriate for thechild (e.g., when a content rating is lower than it should be for thechild). For example, a child may be mature enough to view media havingviolence but not mature enough to view media having sexual content.Content ratings alone may not accurately convey enough information todetermine whether media is appropriate for the child. For example, arating of R or PG-13 may be given to a movie having either violenceand/or sexual content based on the degree to which the content ispresent in media. A block on movies R-rated and up may unintentionallyrestrict the child from viewing an R-rated movie having only violence(e.g., a movie with content that the child is mature enough to view).Additionally, a block on movies R-rated and up may unintentionally allowthe child to view a PG-13 rated movie (e.g., a movie with a contentrating lower than R) having sexual content (e.g., a movie with contentthat the child is not mature enough to view).

Even when all of the content in the media is known, it may be difficultto know, a priori, whether a program is appropriate for a user. Forexample, a parent may generally know what content occurs during a mediabut may not know how people react to the content itself, and may,therefore, have trouble inferring whether his or her child is matureenough to view the content. Therefore, the parent may inadvertentlyapply an overly restrictive content block or may apply a content blockthat would expose the child to inappropriate content due to a lack ofunderstanding of the content itself.

SUMMARY

Systems and methods are described herein for providing a media guidanceapplication that recommends content restrictions based on indicationsfrom other users. For example, the system may identify to a first user arestriction to apply to media with respect to a second user. Forexample, the system may suggest to a parent a content restriction toapply with respect to his or her child. The system may identify therestriction based on a social media post from a third user in the firstuser's social media network. For example, the system may monitor socialmedia posts of other users in the guardian's social network. Forexample, the system may monitor social media posts of friends of thechild, other guardians, and other suitable users. The system mayidentify content restrictions based on monitoring the social network ofthe first user. For example, the system may identify a third user, suchas a friend of the guardian's child, and may determine that the thirduser frequently posts the words “Ooh la la” when viewing media havingsexually explicit content. The system may notify the guardian ofinstances when the third user posts the words “Ooh la la” and mayrecommend blocking media associated with the instance. For example, thesystem may predict that when the user posts “Ooh la la” that they areviewing media having sexually explicit content, based on a history ofprevious social media posts showing that trend. In response todetermining that a post matches previous posts by the third user, thesystem identifies media associated with the post and may recommend acontent restriction to the first user. For example, in response todetermining that a third user, such as a friend of the parent, posted“Ooh la la,” the system may identify media that is associated with thepost and may prompt the parent to apply a block on that media for his orher child.

In some aspects, the media guidance application may analyze a pluralityof previous indications from a social network of a first user toidentify mappings between previous indications and mediacharacteristics. Each respective previous indication is associated witha respective media asset of a plurality of media assets. Each respectivemapping is identified based on determining that the respective previousindication corresponds to a media characteristic of the respective mediaasset. For example, the media guidance application may analyze theplurality of previous indications, such as social media posts, in asocial network of a first user, such as a parent or guardian, toidentify a correlation between previous indications (e.g., previousTweets from a user) and media characteristics (e.g., sexual content,violence, foul language, or suggestive dialog). The system may identifythe number of times a certain indication appears with respect to a mediacharacteristic. For example, the system may identify how frequentlyusers post the words “Ooh la la” when describing media having sexualcontent. In response to determining that users frequently post the words“Ooh la la” when describing media having sexual content, the mediaguidance application may associate the previous indication (e.g., theterm “Ooh la la”) with the media characteristic (e.g., sexual content).For example, the media guidance application may associate the previousindication with the media characteristic by inserting a new entry into adatabase including the previous indication “Ooh la la” and the mediacharacteristic sexual content.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may associate aportion of a previous indication with a media characteristic. Forexample, the media guidance application may receive a first previousindication from a social network of a first user, such as “Ooh la la,check out Halle Berry in “Swordfish” # Provocative” and may associatethe portion of the indication “Ooh la la” with the media characteristic“sexual content,” because the system may determine that the words “Oohla la” appear more frequently than the other words of the indication“check out Halle Berry in “Swordfish” # Provocative” when users in thesocial network describe media having sexually explicit content.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may identify aportion of the indication to map to a media characteristic based on thefrequency with which a portion of the indication appears with respect toother previous indications. For example, the media guidance applicationmay compute a first frequency with which a first portion of the previousindication appears with respect to the media characteristic and a secondfrequency with which a second portion of the previous indication appearswith respect to the media characteristic. For example, the mediaguidance application may determine how frequently a first portion, suchas “Ooh la la” appears with respect to indications associated withsexual content, and may determine how frequently a second portion, suchas “Halle Berry,” appears with respect to indications associated withsexual content.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether the first frequency is greater than the second frequency. Inresponse to determining that the first frequency is greater than thesecond frequency, the media guidance application may map the firstportion (e.g., “Ooh la la”) to the media characteristic (e.g., sexualcontent). In response to determining that the first frequency is notgreater than the second frequency, the media guidance application maymap the second portion (e.g., “Halle Berry”) to the media characteristic(e.g., sexual content).

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may map previousindications to media characteristics based on determining that a firstportion of a first previous indication matches a second portion of asecond previous indication. For example, the media guidance applicationmay receive a first and a second indication, such as a first socialmedia post and a second social media post, from a social network of afirst user. In an example, the media guidance application may receive afirst previous indication such as “Ooh la la, check out Halle Berry in‘Swordfish’ # Provocative” and a second previous indication such as “Thelast scene in @GameOfThrones tonight made me go ‘Ooh la la’” from aplurality of previous indications. The media guidance application maydetermine that the first media asset associated with the firstindication (e.g., “Swordfish”) and the second media asset associatedwith the second indication (e.g., “Game of Thrones”) are both associatedwith sexual content. Accordingly, the media guidance application may map“Ooh la la” to the media characteristic sexual content (e.g., becausethe media guidance application identifies a similar reaction in bothindications, “Ooh la la”, for media having sexual content).

In some embodiments, the media guidance may select the first indicationand the second indication associated with a third user of the pluralityof users. For example, the media guidance application may selectindications from a single user to compare the two indications todetermine how the third user reacts to different types of media. Themedia guidance application may select the third user such that the thirduser is similar to a second user to which the content blocks will apply.For example, the media guidance application may select the third user tobe similar to the second user to predict how the second user will reactto media. If the media guidance application determines that the reactionis inappropriate, the media guidance application may block access tomedia where the third user reacts similarly.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether a first portion of the first indication matches a second portionof the second previous indication. For example, the media guidanceapplication may compare the first indication to the second indication todetermine whether the two indications have matching portions (e.g., ahashtag or emoticon in both the first and the second portion).

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine thatthe first and the second indication comprise words. For example, themedia guidance application may determine that the first and secondindications are text messages sent to a mobile device of the user. Themedia guidance application may determine whether words associated withthe first previous indication match words associated with the secondprevious indication. For example, the media guidance application maycompare words in the first and the second indication (e.g., a first anda second text message) to determine whether any words match bothindications. For example, the media guidance application may determinethat the first portion matches the second portion when words associatedwith the first previous indication match words associated with thesecond previous indication.

In some embodiments, in response to determining that the first portionmatches the second portion, the media guidance application may identifya second media asset associated with the first previous indication and athird media asset associated with the second previous indication. Thesecond media asset may be associated with a first plurality of mediacharacteristics and the third media asset may be associated with asecond plurality of media characteristics. For example, the mediaguidance application may retrieve from a database metadata associatedwith the second media asset and may determine that a portion of theindication matches the metadata. For example, the media guidanceapplication may compare words of the first previous indication to adatabase of media assets to determine that the words ‘Swordfish’ and‘Halle Berry’ match a database entry for the 2001 movie “Swordfish”starring Halle Berry. When a portion of the first previous indicationmatches a portion of the metadata, the media guidance application maydetermine that the indication is associated with the second media asset.The media guidance application may retrieve, from the same or adifferent database, media characteristics for the second media asset(e.g., “Swordfish”). For example, the media guidance application mayretrieve data indicating a genre for the movie, actors and actresses inthe movie, or characteristics of scenes such as sexual content,violence, and vulgar language. The same information may be matched tothe indication in identifying the media asset associated with theindication.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine thatthe media characteristic matches a respective media characteristic inboth the first and the second plurality of media characteristics. Forexample, the media guidance application may compare the first pluralityof media characteristics to the second plurality of mediacharacteristics to identify a media characteristic associated with boththe first and the second media asset. For example, the media guidanceapplication may compare each media characteristic in the first pluralityof media characteristics to each media characteristic in the secondplurality of media characteristics to identify a media characteristicthat is in both pluralities.

In some embodiments, in response to determining that the mediacharacteristic matches a respective media characteristic in both thefirst and the second plurality of media characteristics, the mediaguidance application may map the first previous indication and thesecond previous indication to the media characteristic. For example, themedia guidance application may add to a database a new entry comprisingthe first previous indication in a first database field and the mediacharacteristic in a second database field. The media guidanceapplication may map the first previous indication and the secondprevious indication to the media characteristic because both the firstand the second previous indications may be associated with the mediacharacteristic (e.g., because both indications are associated with mediahaving the media characteristic). For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine that there is a correlation between anindication and a media characteristic when a first and a second previousindication both match and correspond to different media having a samemedia characteristic.

The media guidance application may receive an indication from the socialnetwork of the first user, wherein the indication is associated with afirst media asset. For example, the media guidance application mayretrieve a current status update from a Facebook news feed of the user.The media guidance application may determine that the indication isassociated with a first media asset (e.g., based on detecting a tag forthe first media asset in a status update). For example, the mediaguidance application may retrieve a current status update “Howard SternShow tonight, ooh la la!”

The media guidance application may compare the indication to mappingsbetween previous indications and media characteristics to identify aprevious indication, of the plurality of previous indications, matchingthe indication. For example, the media guidance application may comparewords in the current status update to words in the previous indications(e.g., previous status updates) to identify a previous status updatethat is similar to the current status update. For example, the mediaguidance application may determine that the current status update“Howard Stern Show tonight, ooh la la” is similar to the previousindication “Ooh la la, check out Halle Berry in ‘Swordfish’ #Provocative” because both indications have the words “Ooh la la”.

The media guidance application may identify a media characteristicassociated with the previous indication. For example, the media guidanceapplication may identify, based on the mapping, a media characteristicassociated with the previous indication. For example, the media guidanceapplication may identify the media characteristic sexual content basedon the mapping between indications comprising “ooh la la” and the mediacharacteristic “sexual content” as described above.

The media guidance application may determine, based on a profile of thesecond user, that the media characteristic is associated with a contentrestriction for the second user. For example, the media guidanceapplication may retrieve a profile for the second user comprising alisting of media content restrictions. The media guidance applicationmay compare the media characteristic to the list of media contentrestrictions to determine whether the media characteristic is on thelist.

The media guidance application may block access to the first media assetby the second user in response to determining that the mediacharacteristic is associated with a content restriction for the seconduser. For example, the media guidance application may block access tothe first media asset when the media guidance application determinesthat the first media asset likely contains a type of content that isblocked for the user. For example, the media guidance application maydetermine, based on comparing the indication to the mapping of previousindications, that “The Howard Stern Show” likely has sexual contentbased on a determination that the user posted the words “Ooh la la” for“The Howard Stern Show” and for media identified, by the media guidanceapplication, to have sexual content, such as the movie “Swordfish”.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may block access tothe second media asset associated with the previous indication, by thesecond user. For example, the media guidance application may determinethat media assets associated with an indication comprising “Ooh la la”should be blocked with respect to the second user because the indication“Ooh la la” indicates a reaction that is inappropriate for the seconduser.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may update mappingsbetween previous indications media characteristics by mapping theindication to the media characteristic. For example, the media guidanceapplication may add an entry to a database storing the mappings, theentry having a first field for the indication and a second field for themedia characteristic. The media guidance application may update thedatabase based on the determination that the indication is likelyassociated with the media characteristic.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may block andunblock access to the first media asset based on a location of thesecond user. For example, the media guidance application may identify,based on a profile of the second user, user equipment associated withthe second user. For example, the media guidance application mayretrieve data identifying a mobile phone of the second user, from aprofile of the second user. The media guidance application may identifythe location of the user equipment, for example, the media guidanceapplication may retrieve a GPS signal from the user equipment toidentify the location of the user equipment. The media guidanceapplication may compute a distance between the first location and asecond location associated with a parental control setting for thesecond user.

In some embodiments, the parental control setting may be associated witha location of second user equipment associated with the first user. Forexample, the media guidance application may identify a first location ofa cell phone associated with a child and a second location of a cellphone associated with a guardian. The media guidance application mayunblock access to the first media asset by the second user when acomputed distance between the first and second location are within thethreshold maximum distance. When the computed distance is greater than athreshold maximum distance the media guidance application may blockaccess to the first media asset.

Conventional content restriction systems are configured to block contentbased on content ratings pre-assigned to media. However, staticallyassigned content ratings may not capture a full scope of content in themedia. Furthermore, the content ratings may not accurately capture how auser will react to viewing the media (e.g., if the user is mature enoughto view the media and react appropriately). The described systems andmethods address shortcomings in conventional content restriction systemsby analyzing previous indications for media in a social network andidentifying characteristics of the media that might not be apparent froma content rating. The system may recommend a content restriction if theidentified characteristic is one that should be restricted for a seconduser. By analyzing the interactions in the social network of the userand providing a content restriction recommendation based on an inferredmedia characteristic, the systems and methods described provide asmarter and more comprehensive approach to identifying and blockingcontent that will be inappropriate for another user.

It should be noted that the systems and/or methods described above maybe applied to, or used in accordance with, other systems, methods,and/or apparatuses.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative example of a user interface notifying theuser of a user of a content restriction suggestion in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 2 shows an illustrative example of a database storing a mappingbetween indications and media characteristics in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 3 shows an illustrative example of a user interface allowing a userto apply a suggested content restriction in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 shows an illustrative example of a media guidance display thatmay be presented in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 5 shows another illustrative example of a media guidance displaythat may be presented in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an illustrative user equipment device inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for suggesting contentrestriction based on a mapping between previous indications in a socialnetwork of a user in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for updating mapping betweenprevious indications and media characteristics in a social network of auser in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; and

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for blocking and unblockingaccess to media based on a location of user equipment devices, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Methods and systems are described herein for addressing the shortcomingsof conventional content restriction systems by analyzing socialindications for media to determine whether media should be restricted.The systems and methods described herein may be implemented via aninteractive media guidance application that suggests contentrestrictions based on indications detected in a social network of auser. In particular, the media guidance application may analyze previousindications in a social network of a user to identify a correlationbetween how users in the social network react to media andcharacteristics of the media to which the users are reacting. Forexample, the media guidance application may analyze a Facebook feed(e.g., a social network) of a parent and may determine that a user inthe parent's social network (e.g., a friend of the parent's child)always posts the words “OMG crazy” when viewing media depicting druguse. Accordingly, the media guidance application may determine thatthere is a correlation between the words “OMG crazy” and media depictingdrug use. Using the identified correlation, the media guidanceapplication may suggest content restrictions to the user. For example,the media guidance application may retrieve a current indication fromthe social network (e.g., Facebook feed) of the parent (e.g., “OMGcrazy, Frankie let me down on ‘The Real World’ this week”). The mediaguidance application may determine that because the indication comprisesthe term “OMG crazy” the media associated with the indication (e.g.,“The Real World”) will likely depict drug use (e.g., because the mediaguidance application determines that there is a correlation between theterm “OMG crazy” and media depicting drug use) even when, for example,metadata associated with “The Real World” may not indicate that drug useis depicted. The media guidance application may suggest a contentrestriction for the media (e.g., “The Real World”) if a profile of thesecond user determines that there should be a content restriction formedia depicting drug use. For example, the media guidance applicationmay suggest to the parent, a content block on “The Real World” withrespect to his or her child because the media guidance applicationdetermines that the “The Real World” depicts drug use and thatdepictions of drug use are inappropriate for the child. Therefore, themedia guidance application may apply a content restriction based on anindication in a social media network of a user.

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, chat sessions, social media,applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded on computerreadable media. Computer readable media includes any media capable ofstoring data. The computer readable media may be transitory, including,but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagnetic signals,or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to, volatile andnon-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as a hard disk,floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, register memory, processorcaches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase“user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronicdevice,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “mediadevice” should be understood to mean any device for accessing thecontent described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, a tablet, or any other television equipment,computing equipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same.In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facingscreen and a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multipleangled or curved screens. In some embodiments, the user equipment devicemay have a front facing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On theseuser equipment devices, users may be able to navigate among and locatethe same content available through a television. Consequently, mediaguidance may be available on these devices, as well. The guidanceprovided may be for content available only through a television, forcontent available only through one or more of other types of userequipment devices, or for content available both through a televisionand one or more of the other types of user equipment devices. The mediaguidance applications may be provided as on-line applications (i.e.,provided on a web-site), or as stand-alone applications or clients onuser equipment devices. Various devices and platforms that may implementmedia guidance applications are described in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters' or providers' logos,etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D,etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type ofguidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locatedesired content selections.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604, discussed further inrelation to FIG. 6 below, executes instructions for a media guidanceapplication stored in memory (i.e., storage 608). Specifically, controlcircuitry 604 may be instructed by the media guidance application toperform the functions discussed above and below. For example, the mediaguidance application may provide instructions to control circuitry 604to generate the media guidance displays discussed in relation to FIG. 1,FIG. 3, FIG. 4 and FIG. 5. In some implementations, any action performedby control circuitry 604 may be based on instructions received from themedia guidance application.

In some embodiments, user equipment, such as user equipment 100 (FIG. 1)and 200 (FIG. 2), user television equipment 702 (FIG. 7), user computerequipment 704 (FIG. 7), and wireless user communications device 706(FIG. 7) may comprise control circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 604)that executes a media guidance application for suggesting contentrestrictions to a user based on indications in a user's social network.

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative embodiment of a media guidance displaynotifying the user of a content restriction suggestion in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure. User equipment 100 is depictedhaving welcome notification 102, new indication notification 104,indication 106, and content restriction suggestion 108. In thisillustrative example, in addition to suggesting a content restriction,the media guidance application generates for display an interfacewelcoming a first user, Mary Jones, (e.g., welcome notification 102).The media guidance application may detect a new indication in the socialnetwork of the first user and, in response to detecting the newindication, the media guidance application may generate for display newindication notification 104 informing the first user that another user,Kip Smith, sent a new indication.

As referred herein, the term “in response to” refers to initiated as aresult of. For example, a first action being performed in response to asecond action may include interstitial steps between the first actionand the second action.

As referred herein, the term “directly in response to” refers to causedby. For example, a first action being performed directly in response toa second action may not include interstitial steps between the firstaction and the second action.

As referred herein, the term “social network” refers to any system whichone user can convey information to another user. For example, a socialnetwork may be a computer network used to transmit electronic messagesbetween a first user and a second user. For example, a social networkmay be a computer network used to transmit email, chat, text, voice,and/or video messages. In some embodiments, a social network may beassociated with an individual user and may include rules on how thatindividual user interacts with other users in the social network. Forexample, a social network associated with a first user may include arule that allows for a first user to communicate with a second user, butmay not allow for the first user to communicate with a third user. Inanother example, a social network associated with a first user mayinclude a rule that will promote communications from a fourth user andignore communications from a fifth user. For example, the first user mayfollow or be friends with the fourth user, accordingly, communicationsfrom the fourth user may be generated for display to first user.

As referred herein, the term “indication” refers to any mode which oneuser conveys information to another user using the social network. Forexample, a first user may transmit or broadcast an indication to asecond user, or a plurality of other users, to indicate or convey anyinformation from the first user to the second or plurality of otherusers. For example, an indication may be any sort of communicationmedium between a first and a second user. For example, an indication maybe a text message, email, chat message, blog post, social media post, anaudio clip, and/or a video clip intended for the first user to conveyinformation to a second user. In another example, an indication may be asocial media post from a first user indicating a dislike for aparticular media asset.

In the illustrative example of FIG. 1, the media guidance applicationmay generate for display contents of the indication detected by themedia guidance application (e.g., indication 106). The media guidanceapplication may compare the new indication to a mapping of previousindications to determine whether indication 106 matches a previousindication from the mapping of previous indications. If indication 106matches a previous indication, the media guidance application maypredict that the media characteristic associated with the previousindication should also be associated with indication 106. The mediaguidance application may determine whether there is a restriction on themedia characteristic based on a profile of a second user (e.g., a childof the first user). If the media guidance application determines thatthere is a restriction on the media characteristic. The media guidanceapplication may identify a media asset (e.g., Game of Thrones)associated with indication 106 and may generate for display and maygenerate for display a notification that the media guidance applicationhas identified a new content block suggestion (e.g., content restrictionsuggestion 108).

FIG. 2 depicts an illustrative example of a database storing a mappingbetween indications and media characteristics in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure. Table 200 is depicted having 4 entries,first entry 210, the first entry in the exemplary table, is depictedassociated with first entry user 202, “Kip Smith”, first previousindication portion 204, “Closing my eyes”, first media characteristic206, “Violence”, and first previous indication 208 “Closing my eyesbecause I can't bear to watch the movie ‘300’ # Violent”. Additionally,second entry, 220 is depicted with associated with second entry user212, “Kip Smith”, second previous indication portion 214, “Closing myeyes”, second media characteristic 216, “Violence”, and second previousindication 218 “Closing my eyes! I can't believe the amount of blood in‘Saw VI’”. As depicted in table 200, database entries, such as firstentry 210 and second entry 220 may have some database fields comprisingthe same information. For example, the media guidance application maydetermine that the first and the second user for first previousindication 208 and second previous indication 218 are the same user, KipSmith. Accordingly, the media guidance application may store dataidentifying the user Kip Smith in a database field corresponding to auser that transmitted the indication. An exemplary process forpopulating the exemplary database in FIG. 2 is described below in detailin relation to FIG. 8, FIG. 9, and FIG. 10. A person of ordinary skillin the art would recognize that this is just an exemplary databasehaving exemplary database fields and data. One could add, remove, and/ormodify any of the database fields or entries depicted in FIG. 2 withoutdeparting from the scope of the disclosure.

FIG. 3 shows an illustrative embodiment of a user interface allowing auser to apply a suggested content restriction in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure. For example, user equipment 300 isdepicted having content block description 302, episode block suggestion304, cancel content block suggestion 306, season block suggestion 308,and series block suggestion 310. For example, the media guidanceapplication may generate for display content block description 302 inresponse to determining that a content block should be applied withrespect to the second user as described above and below with respect toFIG. 8, FIG. 9, and FIG. 10.

The media guidance application may generate for display content blockdescription 302 comprising a description as to why the media guidanceapplication has determined to provide the block. In the illustrativeexample in FIG. 3, the media guidance application may generate fordisplay the text “Violence is predicted in season 6 episode 7 of Game ofThrones” in response to determining that indication 106 (“Wow, wasclosing my eyes throughout tonight's episode of Game of Thrones!”)matches previous indications associated with media having violence(e.g., first previous indication 208 and second previous indication218). The media guidance application may perform a search using thewords in the indication to identify a media asset to which theindication is directed. For example, the media guidance application mayperform a search using the words “tonight's episode of Game of Thrones”to determine that the episode referred to in the indication is seasons 6episode 7 of “Game of Thrones”.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine toapply a content block with respect to a second user based on a profileof the second user. For example, the media guidance application maydetermine that the second user is prohibited from accessing contenthaving violence. Accordingly, the media guidance application may suggestblocking access to season 6 episode 7 of “Game of Thrones” in responseto determining that the media contains violence as described above. Inan example, the media guidance application may generate for displaycontent block description 302 prompting the user as to whether he or shewould like to apply the content restriction.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may generate aplurality of content block suggestions based on an attribute of themedia. For example, the media guidance application may determine, basedon metadata associated with the media, that “tonight's episode of Gameof Thrones” is associated with other media, such as other episodes in apart of a television series. In response to determining that the mediais an episode in a part of a series, the media guidance application maygenerate for display an option to block just a specific episode referredto in the indication (e.g., episode block suggestion 304), block allepisodes in a season of the series (e.g., season block suggestion 308),and block all episodes in a series (e.g., series block suggestion 310).A person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that these arejust exemplary content block suggestions and that the media guidanceapplication may identify a number of different media assets to blockbased on the in the indication (e.g., indication 106). Systems andmethods for identifying and suggesting a content blocks and restrictionsare described below in detail in relation to FIG. 8, FIG. 9, and FIG.10.

FIGS. 4-5 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 4-5 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. While thedisplays of FIGS. 4-5 are illustrated as full screen displays, they mayalso be fully or partially overlaid over content being displayed. A usermay indicate a desire to access content information by selecting aselectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menu option, alistings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicatedbutton (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or other user inputinterface or device. In response to the user's indication, the mediaguidance application may provide a display screen with media guidancedata organized in one of several ways, such as by time and channel in agrid, by time, by channel, by source, by content type, by category(e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories ofprogramming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organizationcriteria.

FIG. 4 shows illustrative grid of a program listings display 400arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different typesof content in a single display. Display 400 may include grid 402 with:(1) a column of channel/content type identifiers 404, where eachchannel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column)identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a rowof time identifiers 406, where each time identifier (which is a cell inthe row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid 402 also includescells of program listings, such as program listing 408, where eachlisting provides the title of the program provided on the listing'sassociated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can selectprogram listings by moving highlight region 410. Information relating tothe program listing selected by highlight region 410 may be provided inprogram information region 412. Region 412 may include, for example, theprogram title, the program description, the time the program is provided(if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), theprogram's rating, and other desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L.P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 402 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 414, recorded content listing 416, andInternet content listing 418. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 400 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings414, 416, and 418 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 402 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 402. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 420. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 420.)

Display 400 may also include video region 422, and options region 426.Video region 422 may allow the user to view and/or preview programs thatare currently available, will be available, or were available to theuser. The content of video region 422 may correspond to, or beindependent from, one of the listings displayed in grid 402. Griddisplays including a video region are sometimes referred to aspicture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and their functionalitiesare described in greater detail in Satterfield et al. U.S. Pat. No.6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,239,794,issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated by reference hereinin their entireties. PIG displays may be included in other mediaguidance application display screens of the embodiments describedherein.

Options region 426 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 426 may be part of display 400 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 426 may concern features related to program listings in grid 402or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a mainmenu display may include search options, VOD options, parental controloptions, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronizationoptions, second screen device options, options to access various typesof media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premiumservice, options to edit a user's profile, options to access a browseoverlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.allrovi.com, from other media guidanceapplications the user accesses, from other interactive applications theuser accesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.),and/or obtain information about the user from other sources that themedia guidance application may access. As a result, a user can beprovided with a unified guidance application experience across theuser's different user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 7. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 5. Video mosaic display 500 includes selectable options 502 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 500, television listings option 504 isselected, thus providing listings 506, 508, 510, and 512 as broadcastprogram listings. In display 500 the listings may provide graphicalimages including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also beaccompanied by text to provide further information about the contentassociated with the listing. For example, listing 508 may include morethan one portion, including media portion 514 and text portion 516.Media portion 514 and/or text portion 516 may be selectable to viewcontent in full-screen or to view information related to the contentdisplayed in media portion 514 (e.g., to view listings for the channelthat the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 500 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 506 islarger than listings 508, 510, and 512), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov. 12, 2009,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 6 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 600. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 7.User equipment device 600 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 602. I/O path 602 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 604, which includesprocessing circuitry 606 and storage 608. Control circuitry 604 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 602. I/O path 602 may connect control circuitry 604 (andspecifically processing circuitry 606) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 6 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 604 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 606. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 608). Specifically, control circuitry 604 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 604 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 604 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 604 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 7). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 608 thatis part of control circuitry 604. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 608 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 7, may be used to supplementstorage 608 or instead of storage 608.

Control circuitry 604 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 604 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 600. Circuitry 604 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 608 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 600, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 608.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 604 using user inputinterface 610. User input interface 610 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 612 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 600. For example, display 612 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 610may be integrated with or combined with display 612. Display 612 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD)for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature polysilicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, activematrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathoderay tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescentdisplay, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display,thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 612 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 612 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 612.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry604. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 604.Speakers 614 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 600 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 612 may be played throughspeakers 614. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers614.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone applicationwholly-implemented on user equipment device 600. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage608), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 604 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 608 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 604 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 610. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 610 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 600 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 600. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 604 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 604) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 600. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 600.Equipment device 600 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 610 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 600 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 610.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 600 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 604). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 604 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 604. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 604. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 600 of FIG. 6 can be implemented in system 700 ofFIG. 7 as user television equipment 702, user computer equipment 704,wireless user communications device 706, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 6 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 702, user computer equipment 704, or awireless user communications device 706. For example, user televisionequipment 702 may, like some user computer equipment 704, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 704 may, like some television equipment 702, includea tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 704, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 706.

In system 700, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 7 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 702, user computer equipment 704, wireless user communicationsdevice 706) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example,a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first userequipment device. The content presented on the second screen device maybe any suitable content that supplements the content presented on thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides aninterface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the firstdevice. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured forinteracting with other second screen devices or for interacting with asocial network. The second screen device can be located in the same roomas the first device, a different room from the first device but in thesame house or building, or in a different building from the firstdevice.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.allrovi.com on theirpersonal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as afavorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipmentand user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, ifdesired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can changethe guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless ofwhether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device.In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user,as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 714.Namely, user television equipment 702, user computer equipment 704, andwireless user communications device 706 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 714 via communications paths 708, 710, and 712, respectively.Communications network 714 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a4G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, orother types of communications network or combinations of communicationsnetworks. Paths 708, 710, and 712 may separately or together include oneor more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-opticpath, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g.,IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wirelesssignals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Path 712 is drawn with dotted lines toindicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 7 it is awireless path and paths 708 and 710 are drawn as solid lines to indicatethey are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, ifdesired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be providedby one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a singlepath in FIG. 7 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 708, 710, and 712, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 714.

System 700 includes content source 716 and media guidance data source718 coupled to communications network 714 via communication paths 720and 722, respectively. Paths 720 and 722 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 708, 710,and 712. Communications with the content source 716 and media guidancedata source 718 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 7 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of contentsource 716 and media guidance data source 718, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 7 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The differenttypes of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, contentsource 716 and media guidance data source 718 may be integrated as onesource device. Although communications between sources 716 and 718 withuser equipment devices 702, 704, and 706 are shown as throughcommunications network 714, in some embodiments, sources 716 and 718 maycommunicate directly with user equipment devices 702, 704, and 706 viacommunication paths (not shown) such as those described above inconnection with paths 708, 710, and 712.

Content source 716 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 716 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 716 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 716 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 718 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 718may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 718 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 718 mayprovide user equipment devices 702, 704, and 706 the media guidanceapplication itself or software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data.For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical useractivity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches,what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interactswith a social network, at what times the user interacts with a socialnetwork to post information, what types of content the user typicallywatches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information,etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. Forexample, the subscription data may identify to which sources or servicesa given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the givenuser has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g.,whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user hasadded a premium level of services, whether the user has increasedInternet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or thesubscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period ofmore than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., asurvivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihooda given user will terminate access to a service/source. For example, themedia guidance application may process the viewer data with thesubscription data using the model to generate a value or score thatindicates a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate accessto a particular service or source. In particular, a higher score mayindicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminateaccess to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the mediaguidance application may generate promotions that entice the user tokeep the particular service or source indicated by the score as one towhich the user will likely terminate access.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 608, and executedby control circuitry 604 of a user equipment device 600. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 604 of user equipment device 600and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 718) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 718), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 718 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices702, 704, and 706 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe user equipment device.

Media guidance system 700 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 7.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 714.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. PatentPublication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a web site via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 716 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 702 and user computer equipment 704may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 706 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloudcomputing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computingenvironment, various types of computing services for content sharing,storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites or social networkingsites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing andstorage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloudcan include a collection of server computing devices, which may belocated centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-basedservices to various types of users and devices connected via a networksuch as the Internet via communications network 714. These cloudresources may include one or more content sources 716 and one or moremedia guidance data sources 718. In addition or in the alternative, theremote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such asuser television equipment 702, user computer equipment 704, and wirelessuser communications device 706. For example, the other user equipmentdevices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or a streamedvideo. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operate in apeer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 704 or wireless usercommunications device 706 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 704. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 714. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 6.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for suggesting contentrestriction based on a mapping between previous indications in a socialnetwork of a user in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.For example, a media guidance application implementing process 800 maybe executed by control circuitry 604. In some embodiments, instructionsfor executing process 800 may be encoded onto a non-transitory storagemedium (e.g., storage 608) as a set of instructions to be decoded andexecuted by processing circuitry (e.g., processing circuitry 606).Processing circuitry may, in turn, provide instructions to othersub-circuits contained within control circuitry 604, such as the tuning,video generating, encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaling,analog/digital conversion circuitry, and the like. It should be notedthat process 800, or any step thereof, could be performed on, orprovided by, any of the devices shown in FIGS. 1, 3, and 6-7.

Process 800 begins at step 802, where the media guidance applicationanalyzes a plurality of previous indications from a social network of afirst user to identify mappings between previous indications and mediacharacteristics, wherein each respective previous indication isassociated with a respective media asset of a plurality of media assets,and wherein each respective mapping is identified based on determiningthat the respective previous indication corresponds to a mediacharacteristic of the respective media asset. For example, the mediaguidance application (e.g., via control circuitry 604) may retrieveposts from a social network of a first user and may analyze the posts toidentify a correlation between what is said in the posts, media that isassociated with the posts, and characteristics associated with the media(e.g., by performing a statistical analysis on the indications toidentify words that co-occurs most frequently with various mediacharacteristics). In response to identifying the correlation, controlcircuitry 604 may create a mapping between the previous indication andthe respective media characteristic.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may retrieve a user profilefrom memory. For example, control circuitry 604 may determine whether auser profile exists by first identifying the user (e.g., logininformation, a fingerprint for the user, a picture of the user (e.g.,gained through a webcam), a hash value of data uniquely identifying theuser or any other known identifying information of the user), and thenby comparing the user's identity against entries of a user profiledatabase. As a result of the comparison, control circuitry 604 mayreceive a pointer to a profile if one is located or may receive a NULLvalue if the profile does not exist. The user profile database may belocated remote or local to control circuitry 604 (e.g., on storage 608or on media guidance data source 718 accessed via communications network714).

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may identify a first userprofile corresponding to a social network of the first user. Forexample, control circuitry 604 may identify a Facebook profile for thefirst user (e.g., a user ID identifying a Facebook profile for the userstored on a remote server). Control circuitry 604 may utilize theprofile of the first user to retrieve indications in the social networkof the first user. For example, control circuitry 604 may use theFacebook profile of the first user to identify communications from otherusers that are visible to the first user (e.g., direct messages to thefirst user, or posts broadcasted from other users in the socialnetwork).

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may use an API or anotherinterface to access profile data for the social network associated withthe first user. For example, control circuitry 604 may determine thatprofile data associated with the social network of the first user isstored on a server corresponding to a provider of the social network(e.g., media guidance data source 718). For example, control circuitry604 may determine that the Facebook profile for the user is stored onFacebook servers. Accordingly, control circuitry 604 may identify afunction in an API corresponding to the provider of the social networkand may utilize the function to retrieve information from the socialnetwork. For example, control circuitry 604 may access a tablecomprising a listing of functions that may be used by control circuitry604 to query a Facebook server for the profile data. Control circuitry604 may generate a packet for transmission over a network (e.g.,communications network 714) based on instructions in the function. Forexample, control circuitry 604 may identify a function utilized toretrieve user data from the Facebook server. Control circuitry 604 mayinput parameters into the function corresponding to the first user(e.g., a Facebook user ID) to generate a packet to the Facebook server.In response to transmitting the packet, control circuitry 604 mayreceive data pertaining to the social network of the first user. Forexample, control circuitry 604 may retrieve, from the Facebook servers,data identifying indications (e.g., status updates from users in thefirst user's social network) in the social network of the first user.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may identify user profiledata comprising social network information associated with the user(e.g., text messages, a Facebook news feed, etc.), control circuitry 604may retrieve database entries corresponding to indications that areaccessible to the user. For example, control circuitry 604 may retrievea user profile for a user's Twitter social media account. Controlcircuitry 604 may access information associated with the user's Twitterprofile to retrieve Tweets (e.g., indications) that have been shared byother users in the first user's social network.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may retrieve previousindications from a social network of a first user. For example, controlcircuitry 604 may retrieve data from the profile of the first user by,for example, using a function in an API as described above or byaccessing indications stored in memory, such as storage 608. Controlcircuitry 604 may retrieve, from the profile, indications that areavailable to the first user. For example, control circuitry 604 mayidentify indications, such as social media posts that are accessible tothe user (e.g., indications from other users that have been shared withthe first user), such as a cat video shared by a cousin of the firstuser, or a movie review shared by a friend of the first user.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may select the firstindication and the second indication associated with a third user of aplurality of users. For example, control circuitry 604 may select eachof the previous indications of the plurality of previous indications tobe from a single user (e.g., the third user). For example, controlcircuitry 604 may determine that the first user (e.g., a parent orguardian) would like to receive content restriction suggestions for asecond user (e.g., a child) based on detecting a setting in the userprofile of the first user denoting a desire to receive contentrestriction suggestions. Control circuitry 604 may retrieve a secondprofile of the second user and may identify a closest match to a thirdprofile of a third user in the social network of the first user. Forexample, control circuitry 604 may retrieve a profile for the child andmay match the profile for the child to a profile of another child thatis in the social network of the first user. Control circuitry 604 mayidentify the third user such that the third user is most similar to thesecond user. For example, control circuitry 604 may compute a metric ofsimilarity based on the profile data. For example, control circuitry 604may compare individual data fields in the second and the third profileand may increment the metric for each field that matches both profilesand may decrement the metric for each field that does not match bothprofiles. Control circuitry 604 may select, as the third profile, aprofile from a plurality of profiles in the social network of the firstuser having highest metric. By limiting selection of previousindications to a single user that is similar to the second user, controlcircuitry 604 can more accurately create a mapping between previousindications and media characteristics that is representative of how thesecond user would also react to the various media. In another example,control circuitry 604 may identify the third user based on a setting inthe profile of the first user. For example, control circuitry 604 mayidentify a setting in the profile of the first user denoting a popularmovie critic for children's shows as the third user. For example, bylimiting the selection of previous indications to the movie critic,control circuitry 604 may be able to more accurately identify respectivelanguage, or another respective indication (e.g., emoji, photo, etc.),used by the movie critic when describing media having a respective mediacharacteristic (e.g., the movie critic may post a skull and crossbonesemoji when describing movies he or she finds emotionally disturbing).

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may identify a plurality ofprevious indications that are associated with a media asset (e.g., firstprevious indication 208 or second previous indication 218). Controlcircuitry 604 may process each of the previous indications to onlyselect indications that control circuitry 604 determines are associatedwith a media asset. For example, control circuitry 604 may analyze theplurality of previous indications to filter out previous indicationsthat are irrelevant to media assets (e.g., an indication comprisingwedding photos) from previous indications that are relevant to mediaassets (e.g., an indication comprising a movie review or indicationsrelated to live Tweets during a show broadcast). For example, controlcircuitry 604 may process a previous indication to identify tags, words,or other data that may identify a media asset. For example, controlcircuitry 604 compares words in a previous indication, such as firstprevious indication 208 to a database listing media assets. For example,control circuitry 604 may compare words in the previous indication to atitle field in a database (e.g., a database stored on storage 608, mediaguidance data source 718, and/or media content source 716) listing aplurality of media assets. Control circuitry 604 may determine that theword “300” in first previous indication 208 matches a title field for amovie in the database. In response to determining that a word in theindication matches a movie in the database of media assets, controlcircuitry 604 may select the previous indication (e.g., first previousindication 208). Because control circuitry 604 determines that theprevious indication (e.g., first previous indication 208) is associatedwith a media asset, control circuitry 604 may utilize the previousindication (e.g., first previous indication 208) in creating a mappingbetween words of the previous indication and media characteristics.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may apply a natural languageprocessing algorithm on the indication to determine whether anindication is directed to a media asset (e.g., to optimize performanceof control circuitry 604 in determining whether an indication isdirected to a media asset). For example, control circuitry 604 may applya natural language processing algorithm, such as a name entityrecognition algorithm, to identify words in the indication that map toproper nouns. Alternatively, control circuitry 604 may apply apart-of-speech algorithm to identify parts of speech for words in theindication. In an example, control circuitry 604 may identify nouns orproper nouns in the previous indication (e.g., first previous indication208 and/or second previous indication 218). Control circuitry 604 maythen search the database of media assets described above to determine ifany of the words identified by control circuitry 604 as nouns or propernouns match any media asset entries in the database. A person ofordinary skill in the art would recognize that this is merely anexemplary algorithm, any plurality of algorithms could be used todetermine whether an indication is associated with a media asset.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may receive a previousindication from a social network of the first user. For example, controlcircuitry 604 may retrieve first previous indication 208 or secondprevious indication 218 from a social network of the first user by, forexample, accessing profile information for the first user storedremotely or locally to control circuitry 604 (e.g., media guidance datasource 718 or storage 608). Control circuitry 604 may select firstprevious indication 208 and/or second previous indication 218 to performan analysis on the content in the indication to identify mappingsbetween previous indications and media characteristics. For example,control circuitry 604 may map a portion of the previous indication(e.g., first previous indication 208 and/or second previous indication218) to a media characteristic based on a determination that a portionof the previous indication (e.g., first previous indication 208 and/orsecond previous indication 218) appears more frequently than a secondportion of the previous indication (e.g., first previous indication 208and/or second previous indication 218).

For example, control circuitry 604 may retrieve first previousindication 208 and may map the words “closing my eyes” to a mediacharacteristic violence when control circuitry 604 determines the words“closing my eyes” occur most frequently with movies having violence withrespect to other words in first previous indication 208. For example,control circuitry 604 may compare a phrase (e.g., “closing my eyes”) inthe selected previous indication (e.g., first previous indication 208)to other previous indications (e.g., other previous indications that arealso associated with media as depicted in FIG. 2) to identify a secondprevious indication (e.g., second previous indication 218) having thesame phrase (e.g., “closing my eyes”). Control circuitry 604 mayidentify a first plurality of media characteristics associated with afirst media asset of the first previous indication and may identify asecond plurality of media characteristics associated with a second mediaasset of the second previous indication. For example, control circuitry604 may determine that first previous indication 208 is associated witha first movie “300” and second previous indication 218 is associatedwith a second movie “Saw VI”. Control circuitry 604, may retrieve mediacharacteristics associated with the first and the second media asset.For example, control circuitry 604 may retrieve media characteristicsassociated with “300” such as “action”, “violence”, “drama”, “love”, and“sex”, and may retrieve media characteristics associated with “Saw VI”such as “violence”, “horror”, and “puppet”. Control circuitry 604 mayidentify an intersection between the media characteristics and maytherefore determine that there is a correlation between the matchingindications and the media characteristics. For example, controlcircuitry 604 may identify a correlation between the words “closing myeyes” and the media characteristic “violence” because control circuitry604 determines that both indications (e.g., first previous indication208 and second previous indication 218) have the words “closing my eyes”and are also associated with media that is violent.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may compute a first frequencythat a first portion of the previous indication appears with respect toa media characteristic and a second portion that a second portion of theprevious indication appears with respect to the media characteristic.Control circuitry 604 may divide the previous indication (e.g., firstprevious indication 208 and/or second previous indication 218) intoportions. For example, control circuitry 604 may identify portions ofthe indication based on words, punctuation, or other characteristics ofthe indication. For example, control circuitry 604 may utilize a naturallanguage processing algorithm to identify word phrases in the indicationand may identify a portion as a phrase in the indication. For example,control circuitry 604 may tokenize words in the indication by matchingwords in the indication to known phrases (e.g., by comparing words tophrases in a database) or by identifying parts-of-speech in theindication and inferring phrase boundaries (e.g., based on subject-verbpairs).

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may compute the firstfrequency that a first portion of the previous indication appears withrespect to the media characteristic by identifying the first portion, asdescribed above, and identifying other previous indications where thefirst portion appears. For example, control circuitry 604 may determinethat the word “closing my eyes” appears in ten previous indications(e.g., by matching the words “closing my eyes to previous indications ofa plurality of previous indications), but the words “can't bear towatch” (e.g., a second portion) only appears in two previousindications. Therefore, control circuitry 604 may determine that thefirst frequency (e.g., frequency control circuitry 604 detects the firstportion in the plurality of indications) is greater than the secondfrequency (e.g., frequency control circuitry 604 detects the secondportion in the plurality of indications).

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may determine whether thefirst frequency is greater than the second frequency. In response todetermining that the first frequency is greater than the secondfrequency, control circuitry 604 may identify a correlation between thefirst portion and a most prevalent media characteristic in theidentified previous indications matching the first portion (e.g., themost prevalent media characteristic for the indications having the term“closing my eyes”). In response to identifying the correlation, controlcircuitry 604 may map the first portion to the most prevalent mediacharacteristic (e.g., because control circuitry 604 determines that thefirst portion frequently appears with respect to media having the mostprevalent media characteristic). In contrast, in response to determiningthat the first frequency is not greater than the second frequency,control circuitry 604 may map the second portion (e.g., “Can't bear towatch”) to a most prevalent media characteristic in the identifiedprevious indications matching the second portion (e.g., the mostprevalent media characteristic for the indications having the term“can't bear to watch”).

Control circuitry 604 may identify the most prevalent mediacharacteristic in the identified previous indications based onidentifying and enumerating media characteristics associated with eachof the previous indications matching the portion. For example, controlcircuitry 604 may determine that the first frequency is greater than thesecond frequency and may therefore select the first portion (e.g.,“closing my eyes”) for the comparison. As described above, controlcircuitry 604 may identify a plurality of previous indications matchingthe first portion. For example, control circuitry 604 may employ fuzzymatching to match the term “closing my eyes” to other previousindications having the terms “closing my eyes”, “covering my eyes”,“hiding my face”, etc. Based on the matching, control circuitry 604 maydetermine whether a first portion of the first previous indication(e.g., first previous indication 208) matches a second portion of asecond previous indication (e.g., second previous indication 218). Forexample, control circuitry 604 may match the first portion “Closing myeyes” from first previous indication 208 (“Closing my eyes because Ican't bear to watch the movie ‘300’) to a second portion (e.g., Closingmy eyes”) in second previous indication 218 (“Closing my eyes! I can'tbelieve the amount of blood in ‘Saw VI’).

In some embodiments, one of the first portion and the second portion maybe a hashtag, emoticon, web link, photo, or video. For example, controlcircuitry 604 may determine that a user frequently posts a humorous memephoto when viewing media having comedy. Accordingly, control circuitry604 may match the humorous meme photo to other previous indications.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may determine that the firstand the second previous indication (e.g., first previous indication 208and second previous indication 218) comprise words. In response todetermining that the first and the second previous indications (e.g.,first previous indication 208 and second previous indication 218)comprise words, control circuitry 604 may compare words in the firstprevious indication to words in the second previous indication todetermine whether words associated with the first previous indication(e.g., first previous indication 208) match words of the second previousindication (e.g., second previous indication 218). For example, controlcircuitry 604 may determine that first previous indication 208 andsecond previous indication 218 are email messages comprising a writtenmessage. Control circuitry 604 may compare each word or phrase in firstprevious indication 208 to each word or phrase in second previousindication 218 and, using a fuzzy matching scheme, determine whether anywords are in both the first and second indications (e.g., first previousindication 208 and second previous indication 218).

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may determine that the firstportion matches the second portion based on determining that the wordsassociated with the first previous indication match words associatedwith the second previous indication. For example, control circuitry 604may determine that the words in the first indication matching the wordsin the second indication are the first portion. Likewise, controlcircuitry 604 may determine that the words in the second indicationmatching the words in the first indication are the second portion.

In some embodiments, in response to determining that the first portionmatches the second portion, control circuitry 604 may identify a secondmedia asset associated with the first previous indication, wherein thesecond media asset is associated with a first plurality of mediacharacteristics, and a third media asset associated with the secondprevious indication, wherein the third media asset is associated with asecond plurality of media characteristics. For example, controlcircuitry 604 may determine, as described above, that first previousindication 208 is associated with the movie “300”. For example, controlcircuitry 604 may apply a natural language processing algorithm on thewords of first previous indication 208 to identify proper nouns in firstprevious indication 208. Using the natural language processingalgorithm, control circuitry 604 may determine that “300” is a propernoun. For example, control circuitry 604 may compare words of firstprevious indication 208 (e.g., words identified as proper nouns) to alisting of media titles to identify the first media asset (e.g., aproper noun that matches a title from the listing of media titles).

In another example, control circuitry 604 may identify a second mediaasset associated with the second previous indication, such as secondprevious indication 218. For example, control circuitry 604 may identifya hashtag, or any other topic identifier, in the second indication(e.g., by identifying a character in the indication signifying thebeginning of a tag, such as a ‘#’ character). Control circuitry 604 maycompare an identified hashtag to a database of listing associationsbetween has tags and media assets. For example, a database, such as adatabase stored at storage 608 or media guidance data source 718, maycontain a first field with data identifying a media asset, and maycontain a second field with hashtags associated with that media asset.When control circuitry 604 determines that the identified hashtagmatches a hashtag in the database, control circuitry 604 may retrieve,from the database, data identifying the media asset associated with thematching hashtag. For example, control circuitry 604 may identify ahashtag “# GOT” and may match the hashtag “# GOT” to a database entryfor the television show “Game of Thrones”. For example, controlcircuitry 604 may determine that users post the hashtag “# GOT” whendescribing the television show “Game of Thrones” and may, accordingly,retrieve the hashtag “# GOT” from a database entry associated with thetelevision show “Game of Thrones”.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may retrieve metadataassociated with the second media asset associated with the firstprevious indication and the third media asset associated with the secondprevious indication. For example, control circuitry 604 may identify thesecond media asset (e.g., “300”) and third media asset (e.g., “Saw VI”)in first previous indication 208 and second previous indication 218,respectively, using the steps described above. Control circuitry 604 mayaccess a database (e.g., database of media characteristics) comprisingmedia characteristics associated with each media asset. For example,control circuitry 604 may transmit a query to a local database, such asa database stored on storage 608, or a remote database, such as adatabase stored on media guidance data source 718, comprising databaseentries having a first field with data identifying the media asset and asecond field with data identifying a media characteristic. Controlcircuitry 604 may generate the query to comprise data uniquelyidentifying the second and/or the third media asset. For example,control circuitry 604 may generate a query comprising the words in thetitle of the media asset and may utilize the query to search thedatabase for an entry matching the words of the title. In anotherexample, control circuitry 604 may identify a unique number or stringassigned to the media asset (e.g., control circuitry 604 may retrievethe unique number or string when identifying the media asset asdescribed above). Control circuitry 604 may include the unique number orstring when generating the query and may match the unique number orstring to a database entry.

In an example, control circuitry 604 may retrieve a plurality of mediacharacteristics, such as a genre, content rating, description, listingof actors or actresses, etc. from the database of media characteristics.For example, control circuitry 604 may retrieve a first plurality ofmedia characteristics, such as “violence”, “2006” (the year the moviewas released), “Zack Snyder” (the director), etc. corresponding to thesecond media asset associated with first previous indication 208 (e.g.,“300”) based on matching the movie “300” to a database entrycorresponding to the movie “300” and selecting the media characteristicsassociated with the database entry. Likewise, control circuitry 604 mayidentify a second plurality of media characteristics associated with thethird media asset corresponding to second previous indication 218 (e.g.,“Saw VI”) such as “violence”, “2009” (the year the movie was released),Kevin Greutert (the director) based no matching a unique identifier forthe movie “Saw VI” (e.g., ‘tt1233227’ an IMDB unique identifier for themovie “Saw VI”) and selecting the media characteristics associated withthe database entry matching the unique identifier.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may determine whether a mediacharacteristic matches a first media characteristic (e.g., first mediacharacteristic 206) in the first plurality of media characteristics anda second media characteristic (e.g. second media characteristic 216) inthe second plurality of media characteristics. For example, controlcircuitry 604 may compare each media characteristic in the firstplurality of media characteristics with each media characteristic in thesecond plurality of media characteristics. For example, controlcircuitry 604 may compare each media characteristic in the firstplurality and each media characteristic in the second plurality and maydetermine that the media characteristic “violence” is in bothpluralities. Control circuitry 604 may identify a correlation betweenthe media characteristic that is in both the first and the secondpluralities (e.g., “violence”) and the portion of the indication (“e.g.,closing my eyes”) based on a determination that both the first and thesecond previous indications have the terms “closing my eyes” anddescribe media assets having violence. In response to identifying thecorrelation, control circuitry 604 may map the media characteristic tothe first and the second indication because, for example, controlcircuitry 604 may determine that because the first and the secondprevious indications (e.g., first previous indication 208 and secondprevious indication 218) each contained a same portion (e.g., “closingmy eyes”) and because each corresponded to media having violence, thatthe media characteristic “violence” should be mapped to the indication“closing my eyes”. In a different example, control circuitry 604 maydetermine that a first previous indication 208 does not match a thirdprevious indication (e.g., a third previous indication received bycontrol circuitry 604 via a social network of the first user). Forexample, control circuitry 604 may determine that text in the second andthird indications do not match (e.g., by comparing words in the firstand the third previous indications and determining that no words match)and may accordingly not identify or map media characteristics associatedwith the first or third indication. In another example, when controlcircuitry 604 determines that text in the first previous indicationmatches text in the second indication, but that a media characteristicof the first previous indication does not match a media characteristicof the second previous indication, control circuitry 604 may not map thefirst and the third previous indication to a media characteristic.

Although the above examples are provided with respect to a first and asecond previous indication, the methods and systems described above andbelow could be expanded to apply to any number of previous indicationsfor identifying the correlation between media characteristics andindications. For example, control circuitry 604 may perform astatistical analysis on the previous indications from the social networkof the first user to identify words that are most frequently used insocial media posts associated with media assets. For each of the wordsidentified by control circuitry 604, control circuitry 604 may performany of the steps described above and below to determine a most prominentmedia characteristic for the media associated with indicationscomprising the respective word. For example, control circuitry 604 maydetermine that for indications with the phrase “Oh crap”, the phraseappears most frequently for thriller movies. Control circuitry 604 maytherefore determine that there is a correlation between the phrase “Ohcrap” and thrillers, at least in the social network of the first user.Therefore, control circuitry 604 may map previous indications having thephrase “Oh crap” to the media characteristic “thriller”. In someexamples, control circuitry 604 may then infer that any new indicationshaving phrase “Oh crap” relate to thrillers, even if the media asset inthe new indication is not a thriller.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may map the first previousindication (e.g., first previous indication 208) and the second previousindication (e.g., second previous indication 218) to the mediacharacteristic in both the first and the second plurality of mediacharacteristics. For example, control circuitry 604 may access adatabase stored locally or remotely to control circuitry 604 (e.g.,storage 608 or media guidance data source 718) comprising a mappingbetween previous indications and media characteristics. Controlcircuitry 604 may add a new entry comprising the first previousindication (e.g., first previous indication 208) by adding to a firstdatabase field a portion of the first indication (e.g., a first databasefield comprising a portion of first previous indication 208 that matchessecond previous indication 218) and by adding to a second database fieldthe media characteristic (e.g., a second database field comprising themedia characteristic “violence” determined, by the control circuitry 604to be associated with both first previous indication 208 and secondprevious indication 218). An exemplary depiction of a database tablestoring a mapping between previous indications and media characteristicsis depicted in FIG. 2. A person of ordinary skill in the art wouldrecognize that this is simply an exemplary structure for storing themapping and any of a plurality of data structures may be utilized.

In an exemplary embodiment, control circuitry 604 may store the mappingin an associative array (e.g., a collection of key value pairs). Forexample, control circuitry 604 may identify a key for each pair in thearray based on a determination that a first portion of a firstindication matches a second portion of a second indication, and thatboth indications are associated with a same media characteristic, asdescribed above. For example, control circuitry 604 may determine thatthe terms “closing my eyes” frequently appears in indications associatedwith violent media assets (e.g., control circuitry 604 enumerates anumber of times the word “closing my eyes” appears in indications anddetermines that it appears at least a threshold percentage of the timeswith respect to violent media). Control circuitry 604 may select theportion of the indication as the key. For example, control circuitry 604may select the text “closing my eyes” as the key (e.g., so thatcomparisons to text in new indications may be performed efficiently).Control circuitry 604 may select the media characteristic “violence” asthe value for the key value pair. For example, control circuitry 604 mayconstruct a key value pair for the associative array based on a hashvalue for the word “closing my eyes” as the key and “violence” as thestored value. Control circuitry 604 may determine whether a newindication matches any of the mapped previous indications by creating ahash value for words or other data in the new indication and determiningwhether it matches a hash value for a key in the mapping (e.g., theassociative array).

The media guidance application may map the first previous indication andthe second previous indication to the media characteristic because boththe first and the second previous indications may be associated with thesame media characteristic (e.g., because both indications are associatedwith media having the media characteristic). For example, controlcircuitry 604 may determine that there is a correlation between anindication and a media characteristic when a first and a second previousindication match and both correspond to different media having a samemedia characteristic as described above.

At step 804, control circuitry 604 receives an indication from a socialnetwork of the first user, wherein the indication is associated with afirst media asset. For example, control circuitry 604 may retrieve aprofile for the user (e.g., a user profile stored locally on storage 608or remotely on media guidance data source 718 to control circuitry 604)comprising social network data, such as an indication in the socialnetwork of the user.

Control circuitry 604 may identify a media asset associated with theindication using any of the methods above for processing the indicationand identifying a media asset corresponding to the indication. Forexample, control circuitry 604 may determine that the text “tonight'sepisode of Game of Thrones” in indication 106 corresponds to the firstmedia asset based on the natural language processing described above.Control circuitry 604 may query a media database, such as a databasestored on storage 608 or media guidance data source 718, to identify thefirst media asset. For example, control circuitry 604 may generate aquery comprising the text “Game of Thrones” and “Tonight” (or in someembodiments, a date when the indication was posted). Control circuitry604 may retrieve information from the database listing a uniqueidentifier for the episode of “Game of Thrones” that is, or was playing,on the night that indication 106 was posted by Kip Smith.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may identify the indicationsuch that the indication is not already part of the mapping. Forexample, control circuitry 604 may determine that the indication has notbeen processed by control circuitry 604 and has not been placed into themapping. For example, control circuitry 604 may maintain a timestamp forwhen the mapping was last updated, when a timestamp for the indicationis earlier than a timestamp for when the mapping was last updated,control circuitry 604 may determine that the indication was not alreadypart of the mapping. In another example, control circuitry 604 maymaintain a list of all indications that are already part of the mapping(e.g., by storing text of the indication or hash value for theindication in a database entry). Control circuitry 604 may determinethat the indication is not in the mapping when control circuitry 604determines that the indication is not in the list of all indicationsthat are already part of the mapping. For example, control circuitry 604may retrieve an indication, such as indication 106 from a social networkof Mary Jones because, for example, indication 106 is not already a partof the mapping depicted in exemplary table 200.

At step 806, control circuitry 604 compares the indication to themapping between previous indications and media characteristics toidentify a previous indication matching the indication. For example,control circuitry 604 may compare indication 106 to the indicationsstored in table 200. Control circuitry 604 may compare the indicationsby matching words or other data of indication 106 to words or other datain first previous indication 208, second previous indication 218, etc.For example, control circuitry 604 may compare the words in indication(e.g., indication 106) to words of indications stored in table 200 andmay determine that the words in indication 106 match first previousindication portion 204 or second previous indication portion 214,because first previous indication 208, second previous indication 218and indication 106 all comprise the text “Closing my eyes”.

At step 810, control circuitry 604 identifies a media characteristicassociated with the previous indication. For example, control circuitry604 may retrieve one of first previous indication 208 or second previousindication 218 from table 200 and may access a database field storing amedia characteristic associated with the entry. For example, controlcircuitry 604 may retrieve first media characteristic 206 from firstentry 210 or may retrieve second media characteristic 216 from secondentry 220 because both first entry 210 and second entry 220 areassociated with previous indications that match indication 106.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may infer a mediacharacteristic corresponding to the first media asset based on the mediacharacteristic identified at step 810. For example, control circuitry604 may determine that the first media asset is associated with violencebecause indication 106 comprises words that match words typicallyutilized to describe media having violence by users in the first user'ssocial network.

At step 810, control circuitry 604 determines whether the mediacharacteristic is associated with a content restriction for a seconduser. For example, control circuitry 604 may retrieve a profile datacorresponding to the second user. For example, control circuitry 604 maydetermine that the profile of the first user comprises contentrestrictions for the second user. Accordingly, control circuitry 604 mayretrieve the content restriction from the profile of the first user. Inanother example, control circuitry 604 may determine that the profile ofthe first user does not comprise content restrictions for the seconduser. Accordingly, control circuitry 604 may retrieve a user profile forthe second user from memory.

For example, control circuitry 604 may determine whether a user profilefor the second user exists by first identifying the second user (e.g., auser ID for the second user stored in the profile of the first user,login information or any other known identifying information of thesecond user), and then by comparing the second user's identity againstentries of a user profile database. As a result of the comparison,control circuitry 604 may receive a pointer to a profile for the seconduser if one is located or may receive a NULL value if the profile doesnot exist. The user profile database may be located remote or local tocontrol circuitry 604 (e.g., on storage 608 or on media guidance datasource 718 accessed via communications network 714). Control circuitry604 may process the profile of the second user to identify a contentrestriction.

In an example, control circuitry 604 may access a database field for theprofile of the second user comprising a listing of media characteristicsthat are restricted from viewing by the second user. For example,control circuitry 604 may retrieve a whitelist of media characteristicsthat are viewable by the second user. Accordingly, control circuitry 604may determine that the user can view all media assets havingcharacteristics that match media characteristics on the whitelist. Inanother example, control circuitry 604 may retrieve a blacklist of mediacharacteristics that are restricted from viewing by the second user.Accordingly, control circuitry 604 may block access to any media assetshaving a media characteristic that is on the blacklist.

Control circuitry 604 may compare the media characteristic inferred bycontrol circuitry 604 with the content restrictions for the second userand may proceed to step 812 when the media characteristic does not matcha content restriction to allow for the user to access the first mediaasset (e.g., because control circuitry 604 determines that there is norestriction, by the second user, on viewing media having the mediacharacteristic). Control circuitry 604 may proceed to step 814 whencontrol circuitry 604 determines that the media characteristic isassociated with a content restriction to block access to the first mediaasset by the second user.

In some embodiments, in response to determining that that the mediacharacteristic matches a content restriction associated with the seconduser, control circuitry 604 may generate for display to the first user,a notification that control circuitry 604 has a suggested contentrestriction (e.g., a restriction on access to the first media asset),such as content restriction suggestion 108.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 detects a user selection of acontent restriction suggestion (e.g., content restriction suggestion108) and in response to receiving the user selection of contentrestriction suggestion 108, control circuitry 604 may generate fordisplay the exemplary content block suggestion depicted in FIG. 300.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may determine that the firstmedia asset is a part of a sequence of additional media. For example,control circuitry 604 may determine that the first media asset is anepisode of a series (e.g., by querying a media database, such as adatabase stored on storage 608 or media guidance data source 718 andretrieving data identifying the first media asset as an episode of aseries). Accordingly, control circuitry 604 may generate for displayoptions to block just the first media asset (e.g., episode blocksuggestion 304), all episodes in a season (e.g., season block suggestion308), or all episodes in the series (e.g., series block suggestion 310).In response to user selection of an option to block multiple mediaassets (e.g., series block suggestion 310 or season block suggestion308), control circuitry 604 may identify a second media asset associatedwith the first media asset. For example, in response to user selectionof series block suggestion 310, control circuitry 604 may identify asecond media asset that matches a series of the first media asset andmay apply a content restriction to both the first and the second mediaasset. In another example, in response to selection of season blocksuggestion 308, control circuitry 604 may identify a second media assetthat matches a season in a series of the first media asset. Accordingly,control circuitry 604 may apply a content restriction on both the firstand the second media asset by the first user.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may generate for display adescription of the suggested content restriction. For example, controlcircuitry 604 may generate for display a notification describing themedia characteristic that control circuitry 604 determines to correspondto the first media asset. For example, control circuitry 604 maygenerate for display content block description 302 describing the mediacharacteristic and the first media asset identified in the indication.Control circuitry 604 may generate for display content block description302 having a name of the second user when control circuitry 604determines that the second user is restricted access to media having themedia characteristic as described above.

At step 812, control circuitry 604 does not block access to the firstmedia asset by the second user. For example, control circuitry 604 maydetermine that the first media asset (e.g., Tonight's Episode of Game ofThrones) likely corresponds to media having violence, however, controlcircuitry 604 determines that the second user can view violent media,therefore, control circuitry 604 may not suggest a content restriction.

At step 814, control circuitry 604 blocks access to the first mediaasset by the second user. For example, control circuitry 604 maydetermine that the first media asset has violence (e.g., the mediacharacteristic) based on matching indication 106 to indications inmapping (e.g., first previous indication 208 and second previousindication 218 stored in table 200). Control circuitry 604 may retrievea profile of a second user and may identify a content restriction formedia having violence, as described above. Accordingly, controlcircuitry 604 may prevent the second user from accessing the first mediaasset. For example, control circuitry 604 may update the profile of thesecond user to add the first media asset to a blacklist of media assetsthat are restricted for access by the second user. In another example,control circuitry 604 may update data associated with the first mediaasset to comprise information on the media characteristic. For example,control circuitry 604 may update an entry for the first media asset in amedia database (e.g., a database stored on storage 608 or media guidancedata source 718) to include the media characteristic. Accordingly, whencontrol circuitry 604 identifies an attempt by the second user to accessthe first media asset, control circuitry 604 will block access to thefirst media asset because control circuitry 604 will determine, based onthe updated database entry associated with the first media asset, thatthe first media asset matches a media characteristic that is restrictedfor access by the second user.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may block access to the firstmedia access by the second user in response to a user selection to applya content block suggestion. For example, control circuitry 604 may delayblocking access to the first media asset by the second user untilcontrol circuitry 604 detects input by the first user confirming thecontent restriction. For example, control circuitry 604 may block accessto the first media asset in response to receiving selection of any oneof episode block suggestion 304, cancel content block suggestion 306,season block suggestion 308, and series block suggestion 310.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may update mappings betweenprevious indication and media characteristics by mapping indication tothe media characteristic. For example, in response to determining thatthe indication corresponds to the previous indication control circuitry604 may also map the indication to the media characteristic of theprevious indication (e.g., to strengthen the relationship between themapping between the previous indication and the media characteristic).In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may update the mappings inresponse to user feedback. For example, control circuitry 604 maygenerate for display an option to update the mapping when the first useragrees with the mapping (e.g., when the first user confirms that thefirst media asset is associated with the media characteristic). In someembodiments, when the user disagrees with the assessment by controlcircuitry 604 (e.g., when a user decides to cancel a suggested contentrestriction, such as content block description 302), control circuitry604 may refrain from updating the mapping to include the indicationbecause, for example, control circuitry 604 determines that theinference made by control circuitry 604 is incorrect.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 8 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, thedescriptions described in relation to the algorithm of FIG. 8 may bedone in alternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes ofthis disclosure. For example, conditional statements and logicalevaluations, such as those at 810, may be performed in any order or inparallel or simultaneously to reduce lag or increase the speed of thesystem or method. As a further example, in some embodiments, severalinstances of a variable may be evaluated in parallel, using multiplelogical processor threads, or the algorithm may be enhanced byincorporating branch prediction. Furthermore, it should be noted thatthe process of FIG. 8 may be implemented on a combination ofappropriately configured software and hardware, and that any of thedevices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 1, 3, and 6-7 couldbe used to implement one or more portions of the process.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for mapping between previousindications and media characteristics in a social network of a user inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. For example, a mediaguidance application implementing process 900 may be executed by controlcircuitry 604. In some embodiments, instructions for executing process900 may be encoded onto a non-transitory storage medium (e.g., storage608) as a set of instructions to be decoded and executed by processingcircuitry (e.g., processing circuitry 606). Processing circuitry may, inturn, provide instructions to other sub-circuits contained withincontrol circuitry 604, such as the tuning, video generating, encoding,decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaling, analog/digital conversioncircuitry, and the like. It should be noted that process 900 or any stepthereof could be performed on, or provided by, any of the devices shownin FIGS. 1, 2, and 6-7.

Process 900 begins at step 902, where control circuitry 604 retrieves afirst previous indication and a second previous indication by a thirduser form a social network of the first user. For example, controlcircuitry 604 may identify a profile of a first user as described above.Control circuitry 604 may utilize the profile of the first user toretrieve information from a social network of the first user. Forexample, control circuitry 604 may retrieve a profile containing logincredentials for a social network of the first user. Control circuitry604 may generate a packet to a database located remotely to controlcircuitry 604, such as a database located at media guidance data source718, comprising the login credentials and a request for a userindication. For example, control circuitry 604 may generate a packet toa Facebook (e.g., a social network) server comprising the first user'slogin credentials and a request for status updates or any other form ofcommunication from a third user transmitted via the social network.

Control circuitry 604 may request a first indication and a secondindication corresponding to a third user in the social network of thefirst user. For example, control circuitry 604 may transmit the requestto the Facebook server described above twice to retrieve a first and asecond indication. In another example, control circuitry 604 maydesignate a number of previous indications in the request (e.g., 20 mostrecent posts, or all posts since the end of last month).

At step 904, control circuitry 604 determines whether a first portion ofthe first previous indication matches a second portion of the secondprevious indication. For example, control circuitry 604 may retrievefirst previous indication 208 and second previous indication 218 from asocial network of the first user. Control circuitry 604 may comparewords in the first previous indication to words in the second previousindication to determine whether the two previous indications match. Forexample, control circuitry 604 may determine that both first previousindication 208 and second previous indication 218 contain the words“closing my eyes” and therefore a first portion of the first previousindication matches a second portion of the second previous indication.When control circuitry 604 determines that a portion of the firstprevious indication matches a portion of the second previous indication,control circuitry 604 proceeds to step 906 to identify a media assetassociated with the previous indications. When control circuitry 604determines that a portion of the first previous indication does notmatch a portion of the second previous indication, control circuitry 604proceeds back to step 904 to select another first and second previousindication for comparison.

At step 906, control circuitry 604 identifies a second media assetassociated with the first previous indication and a third media assetassociated with the second previous indication. For example, controlcircuitry 604 may analyze data in the first and the second previousindication to determine a media asset associated with each of the firstand the second previous indications. For example, control circuitry 604may identify a logo of a program in an image associated with the firstprevious indication. Accordingly, control circuitry 604 may determinethat the first previous indication corresponds to the program in thelogo. Control circuitry 604 may analyze words in the second previousindication and may determine, based on the analysis, that the secondprevious indication corresponds to a third media asset by matching wordsin the previous indication to a title of a third media asset.

At step 908, control circuitry 604 retrieves a first plurality of mediacharacteristics associated with the second media asset and a secondplurality of media characteristics associated with the third mediaasset. For example, control circuitry 604 may query a remote or localdatabase for metadata or other information associated with the secondand the third media asset. For example, control circuitry 604 may querymedia guidance data source 718 for information pertaining to the move“300” (e.g., the second media asset associated with first previousindication 208). In response to the query, control circuitry 604 mayreceive a plurality of media assets associated with the first previousindication. For example, control circuitry 604 may receive an arraycomprising a listing of metadata associated with the second media asset.Control circuitry 604 may utilize the plurality of media characteristicsto determine whether to map the first previous indication and the secondprevious indication to a media characteristic of the plurality of mediacharacteristics.

At step 910, control circuitry 604 determines whether the mediacharacteristic matches a respective media characteristic in both thefirst and the second plurality of media characteristics. For example,control circuitry 604 may iteratively compare each media characteristicin the first plurality of media characteristics to each mediacharacteristic in the second plurality of media characteristics todetermine whether a media characteristic is in both pluralities. Forexample, control circuitry 604 may compare media characteristicsassociated with the movie “300” (e.g., the second media asset associatedwith first previous indication 208) and with the movie “Saw VI” (e.g.,the first media asset associated with the second previous indication218). If control circuitry 604 determines that a media characteristic(e.g., a characteristic indicating that either media contain violence)matches both pluralities, control circuitry 604 proceeds to step 912 tomap the first and second previous indication to the mediacharacteristic. Otherwise, control circuitry 604 proceeds to step 902 toretrieve a different first and/or second previous indication.

At step 912, control circuitry 604 maps the first previous indicationand the second previous indication to the media characteristic. Forexample, control circuitry 604 may add an entry to a database storingmappings between media characteristics and indications. For example,control circuitry 604 may store, in the database, the portion of thefirst previous indication 208 matching the portion of the secondprevious indication 218 (e.g., “closing my eyes”) in a first field ofthe database and may store the media characteristic “Violence” in asecond field of the database.

At step 914, control circuitry 604 retrieves an indication by the thirduser from the social network of the first user, wherein the indicationis associated with a first media asset. For example, control circuitry604 may retrieve an indication from a social network of the first user,such as a new indication that has not yet been selected by controlcircuitry 604 for the mapping. For example, control circuitry 604 mayidentify a plurality of indications in the social network of the firstuser by querying a social media profile of the first user as describedabove. Control circuitry 604 may identify and select an indication fromthe third user. For example, control circuitry 604 may identify anindication from the third user by comparing a name field in a datastructure corresponding to an indication with the name of the thirduser. For example, control circuitry 604 may retrieve an indication,such as indication 106 from user Kip Smith.

At step 916, control circuitry 604 determines whether the indicationmatches one of the first and the second previous indications. Forexample, control circuitry 604 may compare words of the indication tothe mapping to determine whether the indication matches one of the firstand the second previous indications. For example, control circuitry 604may compare the words of indication 106 to the words of first previousindication 208 and second previous indication 218 to determine that thewords “closing my eyes” matches the words in the previous indications.In response to determining that the indication matches one of theprevious indications, control circuitry 604 proceeds to step 1002 inFIG. 10. Otherwise, control circuitry 604 proceeds to step 902 toretrieve a first and second previous indication from a social network ofthe first user.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 9 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, thedescriptions described in relation to the algorithm of FIG. 9 may bedone in alternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes ofthis disclosure. For example, conditional statements and logicalevaluations, such as those at 904, 910, and 916 may be performed in anyorder or in parallel or simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. As a further example, in someembodiments, several instances of a variable may be evaluated inparallel, using multiple logical processor threads, or the algorithm maybe enhanced by incorporating branch prediction. Furthermore, it shouldbe noted that the process of FIG. 9 may be implemented on a combinationof appropriately configured software and hardware, and that any of thedevices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 1, 3, and 6-7 couldbe used to implement one or more portions of the process.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 may retrieve, from theprofile of the first user, rules defining when or how to apply contentrestrictions. For example, control circuitry 604 may retrieve from theprofile of the first user, if this then that (IFTTT) rules and may applycontent restrictions in accordance to the IFTTT rules. For example,control circuitry 604 may receive an IFTTT rule, such as a rule to onlyblock access to restricted media assets by the second user when thefirst user is not nearby. For example, control circuitry 604 may receivea voice input from a microphone accessible to control circuitry 604,such as “Block access to restricted programs when I am not watching withmy son.” Accordingly, control circuitry 604 may identify the son of thespeaker (e.g., using the profile information of the first user) and mayestablish a content restriction by the second user when the first useris not present. For example, control circuitry 604 may utilize a firstlocation of a first mobile device associated with the first user and asecond location of a second mobile device associated with the seconduser to make the determination on whether the users are close together(e.g., based on a comparison of the locations). When control circuitry604 determines that the two locations are within a threshold value,control circuitry 604 may present a warning to the first user to notifythe first user that the content restriction has been removed. Whencontrol circuitry 604 determines that the locations are not within athreshold value, control circuitry 604 may apply the contentrestriction.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for blocking and unblockingaccess to media based on a location of user equipment devices, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. For example, a mediaguidance application implementing process 1000 may be executed bycontrol circuitry 604. In some embodiments, instructions for executingprocess 1000 may be encoded onto a non-transitory storage medium (e.g.,storage 608) as a set of instructions to be decoded and executed byprocessing circuitry (e.g., processing circuitry 606). Processingcircuitry may, in turn, provide instructions to other sub-circuitscontained within control circuitry 604, such as the tuning, videogenerating, encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaling,analog/digital conversion circuitry, and the like. It should be notedthat process 1000 or any step thereof could be performed on, or providedby, any of the devices shown in FIGS. 1, 2, and 6-7.

At step 1002, control circuitry 604 determines whether the mediacharacteristic is associated with a content restriction for the seconduser. For example, control circuitry 604 may retrieve a profile of thesecond user and may identify a content restriction field in the datastructure for the profile for the second user. Control circuitry 604 maycompare the content restriction with the media characteristic todetermine whether a content restriction should be established for themedia asset with respect to the second user. For example, controlcircuitry 604 may determine that the second user is restricted to onlyaccessing media appropriate for children seven and under (e.g., based ona setting in the second user profile). Accordingly, control circuitry604 may determine that the media characteristic (e.g., violence) is notappropriate for the second user because violence would not beappropriate for a child less than seven years of age. Accordingly,control circuitry 604 may determine to block access to the first mediaasset by the second user. When control circuitry 604 determines that themedia characteristic is not associated with a content restriction,control circuitry 604 proceeds to step 914 (FIG. 9) and proceeds toretrieve another indication by the third user from a social network ofthe first user.

At step 1004, control circuitry 604 blocks access to the first mediaasset by the second user. For example, control circuitry 604 may preventthe second user from accessing the first media asset by, for example,requiring a parental control password or pin (e.g., a password or pinknown by the first user but not the second user) to access the firstmedia asset. For example, upon selection of the first media asset by,for example, a media guidance application, control circuitry 604 maygenerate for display a prompt indicating that the first media is blockedand requires a pin code to proceed.

At step 1006, control circuitry 604 identifies, based on a profile ofthe second user, a location of first user equipment associated with thesecond user. For example, control circuitry 604 may identify, based on aprofile of a second user a user equipment device corresponding to thesecond user such as a cell phone, tablet, headgear or other deviceassociated with the user (e.g., user television equipment 702, usercomputer equipment 704, or wireless user communications device 706). Forexample, control circuitry 604 may identify a network address (e.g., anIP address) of a portable device associated with the user, based on theprofile information. For example, control circuitry 604 may transmit anetwork packet to the user equipment to retrieve GPS coordinates of theuser equipment.

At step 1008, control circuitry 604 identifies, based on a profile ofthe first user, a location of second user equipment associated with thefirst user. For example, control circuitry 604 may access the profile ofthe first user to identify a second user equipment device correspondingto the first user. For example, control circuitry 604 may identify a MACaddress corresponding to the second user equipment. Control circuitry604 may transmit a network discovery packet over a local networkconnection (e.g., communications network 714) shared with a plurality ofuser equipment. Control circuitry 604 may aggregate a list of userequipment that responds to the discovery packet and may compare a MACaddress of the second user equipment with MAC addresses in the list. Inresponse to determining that a MAC address for the second user equipmentis in the list, control circuitry 604 may determine that the second userequipment is near a location of control circuitry 604 (e.g., because ofa limited range of the local network).

At step 1010, control circuitry 604 computes a distance between thelocation of the first user equipment and the location of the second userequipment. For example, control circuitry 604 may compare coordinates ofthe first user equipment and coordinates of the second user equipment todetermine an absolute distance between the first and the second userequipment. In another example, control circuitry 604 may compute anapproximate distance between the first and the second user equipment.For example, control circuitry 604 may determine whether a first userequipment is on a same local area network as a second user equipment(e.g., by pinging for the first and the second user equipment on thelocal area network). In response to determining that one of the firstand the second user equipment are not on the local area network, controlcircuitry 604 may determine that the distance between the two devices islarge. For example, control circuitry 604 may determine whether both ofthe first and the second user equipment respond to the ping anddetermine that the distance between the devices is large when there isno reply by one of the two devices. In contrast, when both devices replyto the ping, control circuitry 604 may determine that the distance issmall because the range of the local area network is small.

At step 1012, control circuitry 604 determines whether the distance iswithin a threshold maximum distance. For example, control circuitry 604may retrieve a threshold maximum distance from the profile of the firstuser. For example, control circuitry 604 may identify a setting enablingaccess to the first media asset by the second user when the first useris close to the second user. In some embodiments, control circuitry 604may identify a level of precision associated with the thresholddistance. For example, control circuitry 604 may determine a level ofprecision based on the distance threshold. For example, when thethreshold distance is small (e.g., less than 10 feet) the distanceprecision should be less than the threshold distance (e.g., plus orminus 5 feet), when the threshold is large (e.g., about 100 feet) thedistance precision could be larger, but still less than the threshold(e.g., plus or minus 30 feet). In some embodiments, control circuitry604 may determine a method to compute the distance based on a desiredprecision. For example, control circuitry 604 may select a more precisemethod to compute the distance when the threshold is small than when thethreshold is larger.

In an example, when control circuitry 604 determines that greaterprecision is necessary, control circuitry 604 may determine whether thefirst user equipment within the threshold distance of the second userequipment based on a wireless signal strength between the userequipment. For example, the media guidance application may determine arelative received signal strength (RSSI) of a wireless signal betweenthe first user equipment and the second user equipment. The mediaguidance application may determine, based on the RSSI, an estimateddistance between the first user equipment and the second user equipment.In another example, the media guidance application may measure receivedRF power over a shared wireless signal to estimate a location of theuser.

In an example when control circuitry 604 determines that greaterprecision is not necessary, control circuitry 604 may utilize GPScoordinates of the first and the second user equipment (e.g., becauseGPS is inaccurate for under certain circumstances, such as indoors or inlarge cities). For example, control circuitry 604 may determine that thethreshold maximum distance is large (e.g., greater than the margin oferror of the GPS signal) and may therefore query each of the first andthe second user equipment for a respective location.

In some embodiments, when control circuitry 604 determines that thedistance is within a threshold maximum distance, control circuitry 604may unblock access to the first media asset at step 1014. Otherwise,control circuitry 604 may proceed to determine a location of the firstand second user equipment and return to step 1008.

At step 1014, control circuitry 604 unblocks access to the first mediaasset by the second user. For example, control circuitry 604 may unblockaccess to the first media asset by the second user in response todetermining that the two devices are within a threshold distance. Forexample, control circuitry 604 may generate for display a prompt on theuser equipment associated with the first user whether to unblock accessto the first media asset when control circuitry 604 determines that theuser equipment of the first user is within a threshold distance of theuser equipment of the second user. In response to receiving confirmationto unblock access, control circuitry 604 may unblock access to the firstmedia asset by the second user.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 10 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, thedescriptions described in relation to the algorithm of FIG. 10 may bedone in alternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes ofthis disclosure. For example, conditional statements and logicalevaluations, such as those at 1002 and 1012, may be performed in anyorder or in parallel or simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. As a further example, in someembodiments, several instances of a variable may be evaluated inparallel, using multiple logical processor threads, or the algorithm maybe enhanced by incorporating branch prediction. Furthermore, it shouldbe noted that the process of FIG. 10 may be implemented on a combinationof appropriately configured software and hardware, and that any of thedevices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 1, 3, and 6-7 couldbe used to implement one or more portions of the process.

The processes discussed above are intended to be illustrative and notlimiting. One skilled in the art would appreciate that the steps of theprocesses discussed herein may be omitted, modified, combined and/orrearranged, and any additional steps may be performed without departingfrom the scope of the invention. More generally, the above disclosure ismeant to be exemplary and not limiting. Only the claims that follow aremeant to set bounds as to what the present invention includes.Furthermore, it should be noted that the features and limitationsdescribed in any one embodiment may be applied to any other embodimentherein, and flowcharts or examples relating to one embodiment may becombined with any other embodiment in a suitable manner, done indifferent orders, or done in parallel. In addition, the systems andmethods described herein may be performed in real time. It should alsobe noted that the systems and/or methods described above may be appliedto, or used in accordance with, other systems and/or methods.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for automatically generating contentrestrictions, the method comprising: receiving a first indicationassociated with a first media asset from a social network of a firstuser; mapping previous indications from the social network of the firstuser to media characteristics; determining that the indication matches asecond indication in the mapping of previous indications; in response todetermining that the first indication matches the second indication:identifying a media characteristic associated with the secondindication; determining whether the media characteristic is associatedwith a content restriction for a second user; and in response todetermining that the media characteristic is associated with the contentrestriction for the second user, blocking access to the first mediaasset by the second user.
 2. A method for automatically generatingcontent restrictions, the method comprising: analyzing a plurality ofprevious indications from a social network of a first user to identifymappings between previous indications and media characteristics, whereineach respective previous indication is associated with a respectivemedia asset of a plurality of media assets, and wherein each respectivemapping is identified based on determining that the respective previousindication corresponds to a media characteristic of the respective mediaasset; receiving an indication from the social network of the firstuser, wherein the indication is associated with a first media asset;comparing the indication to the mapping between previous indications andmedia characteristics to identify a previous indication, of theplurality of previous indications, matching the indication; identifyinga media characteristic associated with the previous indication;determining, based on a profile of a second user, that the mediacharacteristic is associated with a content restriction for the seconduser; and in response to determining that the media characteristic isassociated with a content restriction for the second user, blockingaccess to the first media asset by the second user.
 3. The method ofclaim 2, further comprising: identifying, based on the profile of thesecond user, user equipment associated with the second user; identifyinga first location of the user equipment; computing a distance between thefirst location of the user equipment and a second location associatedwith a parental control setting for the second user; and unblockingaccess to the first media asset by the second user in response todetermining that the distance is within a threshold maximum distance. 4.The method of claim 3, wherein the user equipment is first userequipment, and wherein the second location is based on a location ofsecond user equipment associated with the first user.
 5. The method ofclaim 2, further comprising blocking access to a second media assetassociated with the previous indication by the second user.
 6. Themethod of claim 2, wherein the previous indication is a first previousindication, and wherein analyzing the plurality of previous indicationsfrom the social network of the first user to identify mappings betweenprevious indications and media characteristics, further comprises:retrieving a second previous indication from the plurality of previousindications; determining whether a first portion of the first indicationmatches a second portion of the second previous indication; in responseto determining that the first portion matches the second portion:identifying a second media asset associated with the first previousindication, wherein the second media asset is associated with a firstplurality of media characteristics, and a third media asset associatedwith the second previous indication, wherein the second media asset isassociated with a second plurality of media characteristics; determiningwhether the media characteristic matches a respective mediacharacteristic in both the first and the second plurality of mediacharacteristics; in response to determining that the mediacharacteristic matches the respective media characteristic in both thefirst and the second plurality of media characteristics: mapping thefirst previous indication and the second previous indication to themedia characteristic.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein the first andthe second previous indications include a plurality of words, andwherein determining whether the first portion of the first indicationmatches the second portion of the second previous indication, furthercomprises: determining whether words associated with the first previousindication match words associated with the second previous indication;and determining that the first portion matches the second portion whenthe words associated with the first previous indication match the wordsassociated with the second previous indication.
 8. The method of claim6, wherein identifying the second media asset associated with the firstprevious indication, further comprises: retrieving, from a database,metadata associated with the second media asset; determining whether athird portion of the first previous indication matches a portion of themetadata; and in response to determining that the third portion matchesthe portion of the metadata, determining that the first previousindication is associated with the second media asset.
 9. The method ofclaim 2, further comprising: updating the mappings between previousindications and media characteristics by mapping the indication to themedia characteristic.
 10. The method of claim 6, wherein the firstprevious indication and the second previous indication are associatedwith a third user of a plurality of users in the social network of thefirst user.
 11. The method of claim 2, wherein the previous indicationis a first previous indication, and wherein analyzing the plurality ofprevious indications from the social network of the first user toidentify mappings between previous indications and media characteristicsfurther comprises: computing a first frequency which a first portion ofthe first previous indication appears with respect to the mediacharacteristic; computing a second frequency which a second portion ofthe first previous indication appears with respect to the mediacharacteristic; determining whether the first frequency is larger thanthe second frequency; in response to determining that the firstfrequency is larger than the second frequency, mapping the first portionto the media characteristic; and in response to determining that thefirst frequency is not larger than the second frequency, mapping thesecond portion to the media characteristic.
 12. A system forautomatically generating content restrictions, comprising controlcircuitry configured to: analyze a plurality of previous indicationsfrom a social network of a first user to identify mappings betweenprevious indications and media characteristics, wherein each respectiveprevious indication is associated with a respective media asset of aplurality of media assets, and wherein each respective mapping isidentified based on determining that the respective previous indicationcorresponds to a media characteristic of the respective media asset;receive an indication from the social network of the first user, whereinthe indication is associated with a first media asset; compare theindication to the mapping between previous indications and mediacharacteristics to identify a previous indication, of the plurality ofprevious indications, matching the indication; identify a mediacharacteristic associated with the previous indication; determine, basedon a profile of a second user, that the media characteristic isassociated with a content restriction for the second user; and inresponse to determining that the media characteristic is associated witha content restriction for the second user, block access to the firstmedia asset by the second user.
 13. The system of claim 12, wherein thecontrol circuitry is further configured to: identify, based on theprofile of the second user, user equipment associated with the seconduser; identify a first location of the user equipment; compute adistance between the first location of the user equipment and a secondlocation associated with a parental control setting for the second user;and unblock access to the first media asset by the second user inresponse to determining that the distance is within a threshold maximumdistance.
 14. The system of claim 13, wherein the user equipment isfirst user equipment, and wherein the second location is based on alocation of second user equipment associated with the first user. 15.The system of claim 12, wherein the control circuitry is furtherconfigured to block access to a second media asset associated with theprevious indication by the second user.
 16. The system of claim 12,wherein the previous indication is a first previous indication, andwherein the control circuitry configured to analyze the plurality ofprevious indications from the social network of the first user toidentify mappings between previous indications and media characteristicsis further configured to: retrieve a second previous indication from theplurality of previous indications; determine whether a first portion ofthe first indication matches a second portion of the second previousindication; in response to determining that the first portion matchesthe second portion: identify a second media asset associated with thefirst previous indication, wherein the second media asset is associatedwith a first plurality of media characteristics, and a third media assetassociated with the second previous indication, wherein the second mediaasset is associated with a second plurality of media characteristics;determine whether the media characteristic matches a respective mediacharacteristic in both the first and the second plurality of mediacharacteristics; in response to determining that the mediacharacteristic matches the respective media characteristic in both thefirst and the second plurality of media characteristics: map the firstprevious indication and the second previous indication to the mediacharacteristic.
 17. The system of claim 16, wherein the first and thesecond previous indications include a plurality of words, and whereinthe control circuitry configured to determine whether the first portionof the first indication matches the second portion of the secondprevious indication is further configured to: determine whether wordsassociated with the first previous indication match words associatedwith the second previous indication; and determine that the firstportion matches the second portion when the words associated with thefirst previous indication match the words associated with the secondprevious indication.
 18. The system of claim 16, wherein the controlcircuitry configured to identify the second media asset associated withthe first previous indication, is further configured to: retrieve, froma database, metadata associated with the second media asset; determinewhether a third portion of the first previous indication matches aportion of the metadata; and in response to determining that the thirdportion matches the portion of the metadata, determine that the firstprevious indication is associated with the second media asset.
 19. Thesystem of claim 12, wherein the control circuitry is further configuredto: update the mappings between previous indications and mediacharacteristics by mapping the indication to the media characteristic.20. The system of claim 16, wherein the first previous indication andthe second previous indication are associated with a third user of aplurality of users in the social network of the first user.
 21. Thesystem of claim 12, wherein the previous indication is a first previousindication, and wherein the control circuitry configured to analyze theplurality of previous indications from the social network of the firstuser to identify mappings between previous indications and mediacharacteristics is further configured to: compute a first frequencywhich a first portion of the first previous indication appears withrespect to the media characteristic; compute a second frequency which asecond portion of the first previous indication appears with respect tothe media characteristic; determine whether the first frequency islarger than the second frequency; in response to determining that thefirst frequency is larger than the second frequency, map the firstportion to the media characteristic; and in response to determining thatthe first frequency is not larger than the second frequency, map thesecond portion to the media characteristic.
 22. A system forautomatically generating content restrictions, the system comprising:means for analyzing a plurality of previous indications from a socialnetwork of a first user to identify mappings between previousindications and media characteristics, wherein each respective previousindication is associated with a respective media asset of a plurality ofmedia assets, and wherein each respective mapping is identified based ondetermining that the respective previous indication corresponds to amedia characteristic of the respective media asset; means for receivingan indication from the social network of the first user, wherein theindication is associated with a first media asset; means for comparingthe indication to the mapping between previous indications and mediacharacteristics to identify a previous indication, of the plurality ofprevious indications, matching the indication; means for identifying amedia characteristic associated with the previous indication; means fordetermining, based on a profile of a second user, that the mediacharacteristic is associated with a content restriction for the seconduser; and in response to determining that the media characteristic isassociated with a content restriction for the second user, means forblocking access to the first media asset by the second user.
 23. Thesystem of claim 22, further comprising: means for identifying, based onthe profile of the second user, user equipment associated with thesecond user; means for identifying a first location of the userequipment; means for computing a distance between the first location ofthe user equipment and a second location associated with a parentalcontrol setting for the second user; and means for unblocking access tothe first media asset by the second user in response to determining thatthe distance is within a threshold maximum distance.
 24. The system ofclaim 23, wherein the user equipment is first user equipment, andwherein the second location is based on a location of second userequipment associated with the first user.
 25. The system of claim 22,further comprising blocking access to a second media asset associatedwith the previous indication by the second user.
 26. The system of claim22, wherein the previous indication is a first previous indication, andwherein the means for analyzing the plurality of previous indicationsfrom the social network of the first user to identify mappings betweenprevious indications and media characteristics, further comprises: meansfor retrieving a second previous indication from the plurality ofprevious indications; means for determining whether a first portion ofthe first indication matches a second portion of the second previousindication; in response to determining that the first portion matchesthe second portion: means for identifying a second media assetassociated with the first previous indication, wherein the second mediaasset is associated with a first plurality of media characteristics, anda third media asset associated with the second previous indication,wherein the second media asset is associated with a second plurality ofmedia characteristics; means for determining whether the mediacharacteristic matches a respective media characteristic in both thefirst and the second plurality of media characteristics; in response todetermining that the media characteristic matches the respective mediacharacteristic in both the first and the second plurality of mediacharacteristics: means for mapping the first previous indication and thesecond previous indication to the media characteristic.
 27. The systemof claim 26, wherein the first and the second previous indicationsinclude a plurality of words, and wherein the means for determiningwhether the first portion of the first indication matches the secondportion of the second previous indication, further comprises: means fordetermining whether words associated with the first previous indicationmatch words associated with the second previous indication; and meansfor determining that the first portion matches the second portion whenthe words associated with the first previous indication match the wordsassociated with the second previous indication.
 28. The system of claim26, wherein the means for identifying the second media asset associatedwith the first previous indication, further comprises: means forretrieving, from a database, metadata associated with the second mediaasset; means for determining whether a third portion of the firstprevious indication matches a portion of the metadata; and in responseto determining that the third portion matches the portion of themetadata, means for determining that the first previous indication isassociated with the second media asset.
 29. The system of claim 22,further comprising: means for updating the mappings between previousindications and media characteristics by mapping the indication to themedia characteristic.
 30. The system of claim 26, wherein the firstprevious indication and the second previous indication are associatedwith a third user of a plurality of users in the social network of thefirst user.
 31. The system of claim 22, wherein the previous indicationis a first previous indication, and wherein the means for analyzing theplurality of previous indications from the social network of the firstuser to identify mappings between previous indications and mediacharacteristics further comprises: means for computing a first frequencywhich a first portion of the first previous indication appears withrespect to the media characteristic; means for computing a secondfrequency which a second portion of the first previous indicationappears with respect to the media characteristic; means for determiningwhether the first frequency is larger than the second frequency; inresponse to determining that the first frequency is larger than thesecond frequency, means for mapping the first portion to the mediacharacteristic; and in response to determining that the first frequencyis not larger than the second frequency, means for mapping the secondportion to the media characteristic.
 32. A non-transitory computerreadable medium having instructions encoded thereon for automaticallygenerating content restrictions, the instructions comprising: aninstruction for analyzing a plurality of previous indications from asocial network of a first user to identify mappings between previousindications and media characteristics, wherein each respective previousindication is associated with a respective media asset of a plurality ofmedia assets, and wherein each respective mapping is identified based ondetermining that the respective previous indication corresponds to amedia characteristic of the respective media asset; an instruction forreceiving an indication from the social network of the first user,wherein the indication is associated with a first media asset; aninstruction for comparing the indication to the mapping between previousindications and media characteristics to identify a previous indication,of the plurality of previous indications, matching the indication; aninstruction for identifying a media characteristic associated with theprevious indication; an instruction for determining, based on a profileof a second user, that the media characteristic is associated with acontent restriction for the second user; and in response to determiningthat the media characteristic is associated with a content restrictionfor the second user, an instruction for blocking access to the firstmedia asset by the second user.
 33. The non-transitory computer readablemedium of claim 32, further comprising: an instruction for identifying,based on the profile of the second user, user equipment associated withthe second user; an instruction for identifying a first location of theuser equipment; an instruction for computing a distance between thefirst location of the user equipment and a second location associatedwith a parental control setting for the second user; and an instructionfor unblocking access to the first media asset by the second user inresponse to determining that the distance is within a threshold maximumdistance.
 34. The non transitory computer readable medium of claim 33,wherein the user equipment is first user equipment, and wherein thesecond location is based on a location of second user equipmentassociated with the first user.
 35. The non-transitory computer readablemedium of claim 32, further comprising an instruction for blockingaccess to a second media asset associated with the previous indicationby the second user.
 36. The non-transitory computer readable medium ofclaim 32, wherein the previous indication is a first previousindication, and wherein the instruction for analyzing the plurality ofprevious indications from the social network of the first user toidentify mappings between previous indications and mediacharacteristics, further comprises: an instruction for retrieving asecond previous indication from the plurality of previous indications;an instruction for determining whether a first portion of the firstindication matches a second portion of the second previous indication;in response to determining that the first portion matches the secondportion: an instruction for identifying a second media asset associatedwith the first previous indication, wherein the second media asset isassociated with a first plurality of media characteristics, and a thirdmedia asset associated with the second previous indication, wherein thesecond media asset is associated with a second plurality of mediacharacteristics; an instruction for determining whether the mediacharacteristic matches a respective media characteristic in both thefirst and the second plurality of media characteristics; in response todetermining that the media characteristic matches the respective mediacharacteristic in both the first and the second plurality of mediacharacteristics: an instruction for mapping the first previousindication and the second previous indication to the mediacharacteristic.
 37. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim36, wherein the first and the second previous indications include aplurality of words, and wherein the instruction for determining whetherthe first portion of the first indication matches the second portion ofthe second previous indication, further comprises: an instruction fordetermining whether words associated with the first previous indicationmatch words associated with the second previous indication; and aninstruction for determining that the first portion matches the secondportion when the words associated with the first previous indicationmatch the words associated with the second previous indication.
 38. Thenon-transitory computer readable medium of claim 36, wherein theinstruction for identifying the second media asset associated with thefirst previous indication, further comprises: an instruction forretrieving, from a database, metadata associated with the second mediaasset; an instruction for determining whether a third portion of thefirst previous indication matches a portion of the metadata; and inresponse to determining that the third portion matches the portion ofthe metadata, an instruction for determining that the first previousindication is associated with the second media asset.
 39. Thenon-transitory computer readable medium of claim 32, further comprising:an instruction for updating the mappings between previous indicationsand media characteristics by mapping the indication to the mediacharacteristic.
 40. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim36, wherein the first previous indication and the second previousindication are associated with a third user of a plurality of users inthe social network of the first user.
 41. The non-transitory computerreadable medium of claim 32, wherein the previous indication is a firstprevious indication, and wherein the instruction for analyzing theplurality of previous indications from the social network of the firstuser to identify mappings between previous indications and mediacharacteristics further comprises: an instruction for computing a firstfrequency which a first portion of the first previous indication appearswith respect to the media characteristic; an instruction for computing asecond frequency which a second portion of the first previous indicationappears with respect to the media characteristic; an instruction fordetermining whether the first frequency is larger than the secondfrequency; in response to determining that the first frequency is largerthan the second frequency, an instruction for mapping the first portionto the media characteristic; and in response to determining that thefirst frequency is not larger than the second frequency, an instructionfor mapping the second portion to the media characteristic.
 42. A methodfor automatically generating content restrictions, the methodcomprising: analyzing, using control circuitry, a plurality of previousindications from a social network of a first user to identify mappingsbetween previous indications and media characteristics, wherein eachrespective previous indication is associated with a respective mediaasset of a plurality of media assets, and wherein each respectivemapping is identified based on determining that the respective previousindication corresponds to a media characteristic of the respective mediaasset; receiving, using control circuitry, an indication from the socialnetwork of the first user, wherein the indication is associated with afirst media asset; comparing, using control circuitry, the indication tothe mapping between previous indications and media characteristics toidentify a previous indication, of the plurality of previousindications, matching the indication; identifying, using controlcircuitry, a media characteristic associated with the previousindication; determining, using control circuitry based on a profile of asecond user, that the media characteristic is associated with a contentrestriction for the second user; and in response to determining that themedia characteristic is associated with a content restriction for thesecond user, blocking, using control circuitry, access to the firstmedia asset by the second user.
 43. The method of claim 42, furthercomprising: identifying, based on the profile of the second user, userequipment associated with the second user; identifying a first locationof the user equipment; computing a distance between the first locationof the user equipment and a second location associated with a parentalcontrol setting for the second user; and unblocking access to the firstmedia asset by the second user in response to determining that thedistance is within a threshold maximum distance.
 44. The method of claim43, wherein the user equipment is first user equipment, and wherein thesecond location is based on a location of second user equipmentassociated with the first user.
 45. The method of claim 42-44, furthercomprising blocking access to a second media asset associated with theprevious indication by the second user.
 46. The method of claim 42-45,wherein the previous indication is a first previous indication, andwherein analyzing the plurality of previous indications from the socialnetwork of the first user to identify mappings between previousindications and media characteristics, further comprises: retrieving asecond previous indication from the plurality of previous indications;determining whether a first portion of the first indication matches asecond portion of the second previous indication; in response todetermining that the first portion matches the second portion:identifying a second media asset associated with the first previousindication, wherein the second media asset is associated with a firstplurality of media characteristics, and a third media asset associatedwith the second previous indication, wherein the second media asset isassociated with a second plurality of media characteristics; determiningwhether the media characteristic matches a respective mediacharacteristic in both the first and the second plurality of mediacharacteristics; in response to determining that the mediacharacteristic matches the respective media characteristic in both thefirst and the second plurality of media characteristics: mapping thefirst previous indication and the second previous indication to themedia characteristic.
 47. The method of claim 46, wherein the first andthe second previous indications include a plurality of words, andwherein determining whether the first portion of the first indicationmatches the second portion of the second previous indication, furthercomprises: determining whether words associated with the first previousindication match words associated with the second previous indication;and determining that the first portion matches the second portion whenthe words associated with the first previous indication match the wordsassociated with the second previous indication.
 48. The method of claim46-47, wherein identifying the second media asset associated with thefirst previous indication, further comprises: retrieving, from adatabase, metadata associated with the second media asset; determiningwhether a third portion of the first previous indication matches aportion of the metadata; and in response to determining that the thirdportion matches the portion of the metadata, determining that the firstprevious indication is associated with the second media asset.
 49. Themethod of claim 42-48, further comprising: updating the mappings betweenprevious indications and media characteristics by mapping the indicationto the media characteristic.
 50. The method of claim 46-48, wherein thefirst previous indication and the second previous indication areassociated with a third user of a plurality of users in the socialnetwork of the first user.
 51. The method of claim 42-50, wherein theprevious indication is a first previous indication, and whereinanalyzing the plurality of previous indications from the social networkof the first user to identify mappings between previous indications andmedia characteristics further comprises: computing a first frequencywhich a first portion of the first previous indication appears withrespect to the media characteristic; computing a second frequency whicha second portion of the first previous indication appears with respectto the media characteristic; determining whether the first frequency islarger than the second frequency; in response to determining that thefirst frequency is larger than the second frequency, mapping the firstportion to the media characteristic; and in response to determining thatthe first frequency is not larger than the second frequency, mapping thesecond portion to the media characteristic.